8/23/06-Four Expressions

Feeling-This stretch of time is haunting and somber: the faces look in on me through glass aquarium walls. I disconnect, I derail, I disattach to the beat of their retreating footsteps. I can't share with those who are cautioned by share-means-care, and they no longer express anything at all except critiques. I'm at a jaded 34 years of involvement in this shifting presentation and I don't have the apathetic dismay I see in those that edge near my fire. It isn't so much caution of me, or the cowered withering of their individual past experiences, that my surrounding people inwardly endure, alone; it is the reluctance to hope, trust, or reach outward. I am alone. I've known this, I still know it, and I'll forever learn it. I plod onward down the empty sidewalk on this oppresive, burdened afternoon.

Plan-I left the bar. I left with the spark for adventure. My companion fled and I could not face the mannequins that pose with attitudes on our public transportation system. I didn't want to be one of those frozen, controlled experiments today. I decided to see how long, and difficult, it would be to walk home from my work. I work downtown ATL and live in the burbs. My Mom had asked what I would do in a disaster situation, seeing as I take public transport to work and home daily. I wanted to see how arduous the trip would be, with the provision that when I tired I would simply wait on the bus. I made it approximately 4 miles. I just spread my travel, my stroll, my steps outward and onward. There wasn't the fear-based disaster, I wasn't angry about a malfunctioning vehicle, I didn't exit from a car filled with hate and cutting words: I was just walking on a Wednesday because I had nothing else to do, really. I stopped at the covered bus stop and looked around. I should walk more, it wasn't bad. The walk became an experiment. I would only take buses home today. And I did; I took the #2 from downtown to Avondale and then hopped on the local route 120. I had to walk from the final stop on that route about a mile to my house. So, 2 buses and close to four miles later, I was home. It is coincident that my final arrival at home was exactly the same time as the train/bus commute delivers.

Sensory-Flowers planted for no one, anyone, whoever, this one. Orange and brown and tall and extending to me as I pass the man with no shirt and I'm glad. Grafitti, horns, heat, a scream?, a cat, a tree, and more horns. Lights are flashing orange or yellow or confusion on the streets and I can't hear the bus and I walk along to the slap-slap of my brown work shoes. I don't hurt, I just absorb. I just listen. I just look. I just intertwine myself into this street scene. I'm innocent, I'm a walker, I don't mean anything-please don't worry...as I take everything into me, swimming in humanity, spitting the stream of society out of my mouth as I lanquidly stroll like a buoyant walrus. This bus is a hurried, labored kangaroo and we are fleas. Yea, you lady-you are flea on your squeaky cell phone and your useless voice...like a lamenting cricket in the summer nights. I nod off in boredom, bouncing in the rhythm of the bus and the road...and the crickets/fleas/kangaroo riders leave me be for which I am very grateful.

Placement-Find me, discover. Open and turn over the stone. Behind that bush, between the door and the wall. I'm right here, over shadow and under drape. I am in this place, left of right and right after being left behind, I am vast distance on a cheap map.

Effusive

Pink sky accentuates blue vastness and my iris and retina and thankful soul are altered within the cast colored light. I stand in my driveway and stare through powerlines and intrusive pine trees at a hue I'd like to feel; this spectral rariety expresses the collective demonstration of control and beauty and nature in a fleeting collaboration display. I stood there and absorbed this wonder and felt myself change, shift, understand, grow: I took in discovery in color and connection to impermanent snapshots and somehow immersed myself into the shifting sunset. Each cell reflects a different capture of light in the boomerang of energy transmission with the splash transforming every new sensation in a shine, a twinkle, a bath in radiance and I am the edge of the world as the horizon chases itself and inversely I run within.

One*Area Code*Realize

Wireless wording,
These ones and twos will find rest.

Quiet plodding,
Mournful breaths at last connect.

Without choking,
The bravery of months of distance.

Insides stirring,
To hope or decide there's nothing left.

Mirror morning,
Pink and red are an empty kiss.

Dare

Intended, imagined, syrupy dreamed, wishful.
Impetus, initiation, applied leverage, torqued.
Darkness, secrets, tender, sigh.
Caution, care, concern, defenseless.
Connection, collusion, cohesion, combined.
Crickets and cicadas, rainy patterns, wavering shadows, warm touch.

Cheat Sheet

Assignment: Find the ratio of happiness to other feelings in your life and graph it. You've got 10 seconds to complete the thought, 2 minutes to prepare your work, 30 seconds for revisions, and 2 seconds to clear your throat before your speech in front of humanity. They then will critique you and you will have the rest of your life to either believe them, reject them, or wonder if you are indeed happy at all.
Now, take that data, that introspection, that intervention and translate it into the mechanics of your daily schedule. Don't forget to add in your spiritual infrastructure and wishful dreams. Negate the influence of all sensory inputs, including sound, sight, and the rest. The result will be a negative quotient which will need to be converted into useful information.
So, take your quotient and multiply it by the amount of hours you have left in your yet-to-be-determined life, rounding to the nearest breath.
Next, take 10% off for the tip, aka gratuity, of being allowed to be alive and leave that in the government coffers upon your premature, tragic, unforeseen, or selfish exit. This 10% can be subtracted from your final gross figure provided your exit is of substantial or innovative means ie: dying on Marta will not be considered for subtraction; skydiving and impaling yourself on your very own premedicated and prepared tombstone would be considered, at least until it became a standard practice.
After you have crunched a subtotal of these numbers you will need to convert this data into fractions. The numerator should be the amount of positive input your life expressed, while the denominator will become the damage you caused yourself. After you have divided yourself into black and white you will need to take a negative photographic image of that number for inclusion in the book of purgatory, allowing no room for error because indeed you will be strenuously fact checked.
At this point you will have a successful resolution to how to gauge how happy you are according to the sliding, transitional scale of how short life is. And at that point it is up to you to use that data in the way that you see fit.

M'ville-The Forest

This dank darkness grasped and tugged, pulling at you with weighted uncertainity and trepidation. The cover of humidity and hushed sound was palpable, almost overwhelming was its aura of enshrouded solemnity. These fake trails, mere lucky connections of footsteps in our intrusive bumblings, tried to warn us against entry with each hindering limb or blockading shrub. We were fools; we were starry-eyed, clueless, mind-expanding interlopers on some kind of undefined, unplanned, unfocused mission.
We, after a Braves game and undeniably in a frame of mind that lacked coherent judgement, decided to drive to my old college...north 4 hours of highways to Tennessee. I had stayed (somewhat) sober, being doomed to the driver role, and officially had the say-so: I said, "yeah, ok. The woods are killer." And off we went. Long, long shadows on the road. We played word games and told stories and finalized plans and dreamed aloud. We were together in spirit and that's about all we knew for certain.
The arrival to my old college was unexpectantly awkward. Our entire voyage had been about getting to this place, but we never planned for what would happen upon our journey's success. We step out of the cramped car to stretch our bones and find a sleepy town, a shadowy destination, a seemingly missed party. We climb back into the vehicle and search for old friends among the off-campus housing and locate someone with lights on. We crash it. Folks backslap me with fond memories, others shake my friends' hands, most look at our female adventurer, Amiz, and ogle. We decide to retreat to the woods, the sudden influx of strangers being an overload to our sense of destiny, of community, of understanding. One drone from the party accompanies us on our trek into the woods, much to our dismay as she is highly intoxicated and we are not at all.
I drive into the secret backroads of the college campus, parking the car in the hidden spots I've learned in my time there, and we depart into the sweeping cover of ink.
The smells of the lush Tennessee valley forests command our attention. This is a wave of freshness, of water-retained air, of green hemlock, of fertile earth, of mountain streams, of hill-curved windstreams. The fold of light against the woods curls us into its interior in 5 steps, and we meld into the different value of light in our eyes. The drunk girl babbles, complains about the dark, and grips my arm in terror. I lead the group--my friends and a hanger-on--by luck, dead-reckoning, the edges of my feet against the outsides of the slight path, and my soul.
Owls welcome us, as do the cicadas. We carry no lights beyond the soft orange of our cigarette ends. We walk silently, stumble rarely, even dodge spiderwebs in completely light-lacking drape. We infused ourselves, our unit, into those patient, ancient, reverent trees and undergrowth. It was mystical; the undertaking required more than intelligence, asked for more than respect, derived from randomly directed energy, delivered incredible depths of connection to experiences beyond our understanding, and supplicated those among us willing to sit and listen to the echoes of concentric rings of silence being broken apart into layers...or, in different words, cycles.
The drunk girl broke us away. I had sequestered our party into a bushy lowland, long after the concern of mosquitoes had passed, and we simply communed in that blackend spot of meditation. I remember the girl tugging my arm, now alarmed as her senses somewhat returned and she realized we were just sitting in the interior of some oppressively dark woods without a clue how to exit, and I, along with my friends, collectively sighed in our disturbance and rose to return to the car.
We found it without any hinderances, returned to the subdued party, and went inside. There we borrowed some beers after our quest, smoked cigs and talked amidst ourselves, and turned in for a few odd winks. We departed before the alcohol level lessened in the inhabitants passed out around us, leaving Tennessee to football time, respectful woods, and no need for further endeavors from our band of explorers.
The ride home was quiet, reflective. I truly believe each of us remember that outing with pride, understanding, and deeply rooted appreciation. And that is why I write it, this evening that reminded me of that heavy humidity dampness underpinned to a soft night breeze to caress the skin and the memorable recollections from treasured nights gone.

Introduction

It was a transfer of energy; this introduced effusive outpouring bumped my tight, circled-wagon glow into movement like impact on a static pool ball. I felt it before I registered the source. I turned, as one does when jostled in a crowd or grabbed from an unseen friend unexpectantly, and looked into the shine of the energy. I wasn't disturbed and I wasn't startled and I wasn't confused and I wasn't anything that felt bothered...I was happy.
I was excited or energized or electrified. I was enlivened that my stadid glow had been forced into motion. And more, I was glad to find the origination of this forced impetus of action. It was truly unexpected, me poring over some boring article in the free weekly publication in an attempt to kill time on a Friday afternoon of possibility or recollection.
I peer into a smile, a neon sign curvature of lips and teeth and soft, caring eyes. I see creases around eyes, laughter lines I've heard women say, and high cheeks, and I register a hint of fun at my expense. I become incredulity and shine and sensation and comfort, like the cat who is awakened from sleep in a confused bliss of soft petting. And there we were...and that's exactly how it happened.
She ate a salad and talked and I drank a PBR and detailed experiences and we found the middle of two separated lives and it felt very nice. It was Friday, it was that day, it was the beginning--it was our introduction.

Slumped

How close is your death? Morbid, scary, harsh thought, a downer--most likely. Sorry. But, I touched a dead person this week, so forgive me if death is on my mind.

I ride Marta, back and forth each day, and there are countless stories I could tell about these travels. But Wednesday was a new level of weird. From 5 Points two trains depart: the Candler Park train, which is a stubby sucker that only goes four stops before making a loop back to become another short-trip train westbound; and the snaking eastbound train that chases the Candler short hop by about 4 minutes. I never take the Candler one because I'll have to get off and wait for the eastbound, but for some odd reason I jumped on that one on Wednesday.

The Candler short hop train was very nice, clean and full of cold air-conditioned air. There was no shortage of seats and even the windows were clean. We click-clacked along our four stops to Candler Park and all was well. Then, when reaching the last stop the lights were turned off and announcements were made explaining this was the end of the line. We, the myriad riders, gathered near the doors. One guy was slumped motionless in his seat. I went to jostle him to awaken him, thinking him to be hitting the sauce after work or something and passed out. Nope, he was dead. Eyes rolled back in his head-no chest movement-pale skin-dead.

I looked around: folks were freaking out. I walked up to the train conductor's window and told him he had a Medical, a problem; in fact, he has a dead guy on his train who was not deboarding as instructed. The conductor tries to awaken the man and I exit the train, the scene, the station. I walked the two stops onward, a good 5-7 miles, and went for a beer. I thought over how short life is for all of us. I then got back on Marta and went home, talked to my Mom about the random events of my day after 5 hours from my clockout at work, and started on my OT work. That's how I dealt with it.

This guy, this suit and tie guy, this dead person-who started the short hop on the Candler train alive because he had to walk onto the train and find a seat-passed during our short jaunt. I found him. I tried to shake him awake, but he was gone from this plane of existence.

Life is short, your time alive is incalculable, your breaths are not warrantied. I know, I touched death this week.

Whisper Unwound

I discarded a burden last night, writing into permanence this scared-cringing heaviness that has loomed right underneath my skin and wrinkles and blood-shot eyes since last September. It felt so good to face it, force it into a manageable form, archive it for my depressive curiousity in future days, and excrete it from my exhausted form. How did I finally know to do this? What caused all the feelings to adhere into a format? Why, when I began the writing, did all the words and memories line up in order? And what about all those mental snapshots I had repressed or forgotten, how did they reappear?
Do you know how it feels when you pass onward from something in your life...like, say, getting the cast taken off your leg now that it has healed? You hated that damn cast, cursed it and scorned it, but in the end your leg felt exposed and naked and odd without that loathed cast. That's how I feel now that I have dropped some of that gnawing pain, that unfinished conclusion, that ending to the ending. And fresh, deep breathes are easily come by, along with cleaner dreams and new directions. And hope has become an answered prayer instead of a breathy whisper.
This time in my life has been returned to me to repair, prepare, develop, and progress onward into the future I can now approach unhindered, standing upright with pride, and smiling with genuine joy.

Rainy Night

"You can't wish that, no don't say that...don't even think those thoughts. It will only jinx us."

The light was broken, haphazard, cutting through abstract raindrop-splattered patterns on the front glass. The floorboard was cluttered with trash and it looked like I felt when I reached into the two of us and tried to find words to explain away pain.

The drops held her diluted attention and kept her scanning the parking lot for recognizable delivery. I spoke to air, in the confined air, about airy wishes. She focused on the things that were real: the drops, the garbage, the hurt, the insatiable need, the clawing inside of her, the anger, and the hopelessness.

"Geeeeez, mfing Louise, will it ever stop raining?" I try to break the solid air inside the car, try to initiate something, elicit a hopefully civil response.

The sound of rain was overpowering and the drops obscured the view and the time loomed electronic-green accusations at us in that darkened parking lot where we were subject to someone else's schedule and hurt steamed the glass as we waited.

"What is it we're doing anyway?" she quietly asked the falling drops, and I had no answer.

Structured Exit

Absolute.
Discard.
Effusive.
Off-hand.
Alone.

Erase.
Resign.
Alter.
Disconnect.
Ineffective.

Malcontent.
Infected.
Discomfort.
Absolve.

Endure.

Upward, Beyond

He breathes heavily, expelling stale air and worry, and blinks away the aftermath of his mental daydream. It is the same one, the wishful thoughts of what he will do next, later, tomorrow, in the future, someday...whenever...hopefully, with his burning continuing inside of the body that contains the dreaming apparatus. And he exerts tiny movements in his lull of life, his lanquid self-centered bubble of thoughtful dead air; he is the half-deflated ballon tied to the bedpost of the kid who has forgotten the cotton candy, discarded the crappy stuffed bear, the entry stamp now faded from the small hand along with the lights and excitement and feeling of discovery and giddy recklessness.
It was inactive once, just as it was with the non-fenced open expansion: this drive to become, to rise above the slump of his surroundings, the impetus of forward direction consumed him into believing his heading to be correct. Just as this glowing force moved him so did the tidal wash of darkened disappointment clutch him into the undertow of immobility, the fear-faced inertia burdening his desperate, twitching limbs and numbing the impulsive attempted starts and fits to snap the atrophy of his stagnation.
Somewhere, some-dark-where, his grasping hand clutched a hand-hold and clung for his life on the slick walls of despair. And he climbed, he toiled, he gained upward movement, and he began to change. Was it the harsh bottom? Could he have belief?
Lessons in finding the proper placement of trust, the faith of a single step, the pulse of his blood in his constant ascent calmed that abandoned place inside, the desert that lacked hope or clarity.
He is tired. He clutches nobs and wedges his feet into strange positions of foundation. He worries about his rate, about his time, about his position. He sees no light ahead and blackness wishes to paint him into its endless, draining gulf as it snaps at his beaten ankles. On this arduous wall of shadows, he has but two choices: overcome or fail, fall, flail helplessly into the encroaching demise. He is worn, he is beat-down, he is fatigued. He breathes heavily, searching for the next step.

Never-Lasting

Can't grab that fade or hold the dissolving impressions, upon waking, of the reason for the night's dream. That color in the sky will burn into my emotional registery, and it will pass onward into blue or black or gray. This slimy wet hand holding my hand in the other's grip of closeness and care will have to pull itself from our embrace to continue the necessary functions of the body and the mind, and put the heart into a period of patient, expectant waiting for the touch to return. The constant things, which all function according to an invisible schedule and routine, continue: Blood, breathing, blinking, bodily demands, and the ever-present search for understanding regulates and centers my vaporous rings of impermanent, transcendent sensory tendrils. My supernova mortality emits heat into the involvements of my feelings, my discoveries, my whipped, chagrin failures, my soulful beliefs, my whispy hopes. I spin, I pulse, I combust, I project my collection of me outward...into the void between us.

Watching The Sunset's Colors Blend

They leave, departing to the visionary dreams in life's richness, and I watch their exit and capture the vapor trails of their passage in the feelings and the memories of their impact on my life. I wouldn't stop them, prevent their leaving, hinder their motion, or spoil the excitement: actions of hope, determination, and resolutions tend to shape the road ahead and that is bigger than any of us. And I can only express the best of wishes for them and hold my sighs or slumped shoulders for their departure, because I would just be selfish in the face of their shining possiblities. But this old town, this old state, this old friend won't be the same without them, with their presence being so far away. It amazes me how solid and rooted moments of life or experiences shared or lessons learned become in my life when the folks that these adventures originated from are transported, flee, and depart. This shimmering mirage of the present moment echos the very impermance of life itself, and passes too close to mortality for my comfort.
Not good-bye, not so long, not later...be the best you can be with the opportunities that have been revealed to you.

Movement of the Spirit

5 A good man hates lies; wicked men lie constantly and come to shame.
6 A man's goodness helps him all through life, while evil men are being destroyed by their wickedness.
9 The good man's life is full of light. The sinner's road is dark and gloomy.
12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick; but when dreams come true at last, there is life and joy.
14 The advice of a wise man refreshes like water from a mountain spring. Those accepting it become aware of the pitfalls on ahead.
16 A wise man thinks ahead; a fool doesn't, and even brags about it!
19 It is pleasant to see plans develop. That is why fools refuse to give them up even when they are wrong.
20 Be with wise men and become wise. Be with evil men and become evil.
25 A good man eats to live, while the evil man lives to eat.

Proverbs 13, selections

The Twisty, Briar-Covered Path

This is a very brief history of all the women that I have loved or felt emotions for, starting from the beginning. Their names will be protected, unlike my heart.

First Grade-
G-My first kiss. It was on the playground. I tickled her until she kissed me. Later I did something stupid and that was the end of that.

Second Grade-
B-We couple-skated at the rollerskating rink. I think we kissed. Whoopee.

Sixth Grade-
L-She lived in my neighborhood and I was awestruck. I went to her house on lazy afternoons. I made her laugh. Eventually I tickled her and got one, sweet, everlasting kiss. She moved soon after.

Eighth Grade-
L-She was a complete diz. All the guys wanted her, probably just because that's what our raging hormones were goading our confused brains into thinking. I used to walk her home. I think I accidentally felt her boob once. It wasn't that great.

Ninth Grade-
JC-I fell hard for her. She was the coolest, most beautiful, entrancing creature ever to walk the face of the earth. She had big hair and smelled awesome in her cloud of perfume that I can still pick out of a crowd to this very day. We dated for a week and then I got the ominous note of doom. I still think about her from time to time, but she's married now.

Senior Year-
B-I think I was more amazed by her than in love with her, but she sure made an impression on me. We had a good evening on graduation but I think it scarred me more than anything. I have no idea where she is these days. I'm not so impressed anymore either.

Summer after Senior Year-
R-Went to SGSA and met R there. GEEE-GADS, this girl was the hottest formation of a human ever. She still makes me squirm. Some clueless, lucky SOB is out there cheating on her and verbally abusing her right now, there's no doubt in my mind.

College-
J-Probably the one I should've stuck with but I managed to completely screw it up. She was by far the coolest chick I've ever been fated to hang around. Our time together was innocent and pure. I cringe at my selfish actions.

K-One of the most self-centered people I've ever met. She cheated on me and verbally embarassed me in front of friends for sport. I say now to the world: she had three nipples. Take that you a-hole.

Real World (Post College)-
J-My longest, deepest, and most promising relationship. We ended up growing into friends from lovers. I still respect her and talk to her frequently. She's awesome and I cherish most of the time spent together.

P-My first writer girlfriend. She left for school out of state and things dissolved. I'm glad it is over, honestly.

B-One dangerous chick, a true game of russian roulette. I saw her boob once and it hooked me for a long time. She was fire, desire, danger, sin, and intrigue. I let her poison me for too long. She introduced me to Icy J.

K-This is the one I truly wanted to be with, the one who made me hot and excited and attentive and believe that things like true love and fate was for real. I wholeheartedly believe that I'm still in some state of love for K. She had me from the moment she looked at me and she still has a part of me. I simply found her and knew, but dumbass fate didn't know and I got burned, ruined, and destroyed. Twice. This trainwreck put me in an awful self-defeatist mode, which contributed to the next relationship implosion. K, oh K, you bleed me still.

Icy J-My downfall, my heart given to someone, my attempt at a family and normalcy and society standards of maturing. The exact opposite situation happened and my life fell apart...truthfully both of our lives fell apart...and I'm still putting the pieces back together. The only person I've ever proposed to and, perhaps, the only one I will ever propose to.

A-A haphazard blunder of two lonley folks trying to find some kind of contentment. She will remain in my thoughts most likely forever because I never knew that I could feel emotions of kindness, infactuation, or connection again after Icy J. But I found all of those in A, just trapped inside a broken timeframe of rules and regulations and placement of importance.

Makes me wonder who is next...

Underrated

The pen touches paper:
A flash of a smile before the doors close together
The captured shine of a yellow sunrise
I saw a cat stretch and yawn
A penny on the sidewalk left for me to find
Scratched memoirs.

The pen expresses anything:
Spread the doom
Inflame the ignorant masses
Doodles helped me survive classrooms
Here's my phone number
Her BP is 80 over 120
Driving While Intoxicated, Failure To Have A Clue
I do hereby agree to dissolve this marriage

The pen paints inky curves:
Highlights errors
Makes cartoons with mustaches
Graffitti-hate-vandalize-deface
Captures ideas, breaks barriers
Leaks and ruins and stains
Runs dry, archive
Indelible epitaph left to impress

Today, 6/27/06

In the office:

You said, "How's the truck coming?" and I didn't even know you remembered that I had bought one. Heck, I don't even know your last name, but you remembered. You asked, you wanted to know about me on this horrible, sinking Tuesday. Thank you.

At the bar:

You said, "I want to know how to write better, because it is so easy for you." I said, no sweat, I'd help. We drank another and walked to the Marta stop and the line divided us with two electric rails, going in both directions at once like a never-ending journey of arrival and departure.

On the train:

I said that the art was fantastic and he said "thanks..." and I talked about it all the way to my station. He asked me if I drew and I said I wrote and he said, "oh, graffiti tags" and I said "yeah, and prose" and he looked confused. I shook his hand and left the train.

On the bus:

The noise from the back grew in volume as the driver passed the bus stop. "That's my stop! Are you drunk?" screamed the annoyed rider. He got off about 40 feet past his stop and mumbled curses. The driver slammed the accelerator pedal down and we lurched forward and I grinned because I knew we'd get home quick today.

In my room:

Don't give up hope, don't curl like a bug and die on your back. Don't dismiss life or breathe slowly enough to pass on to dispersal. I will move forward, I said, as I checked the sites for mistakes and didn't call or answer the phone.

Outside while smoking:

I grabbed the leftover oversized sidewalk chalk from when the kids were a part of my life, left on my porch to remind me of them every day or night, and I dropped to the pavement. I just tagged the word "grow" and colored it. I highlighted it. I sweated and swatted. I got my hands dirty. I smiled. I smiled. I smiled all to myself.

Ghost Vision

Everywhere I look, everything I see is white. If it isn't white, I see the absence of white and only register where white belongs. It is a color, a glow, a radiance, a blinding flash like seeing stars when you clock your noggin. It is not a racial color, nor is it dismissive of the various other colors of the spectrum. It is white, and that is the meaning of it. It is large white clouds or sickly white skin; it is microspecks of white on the carpet or pinpoints of white light emanating from distant and past stars. It is the wash of the bloated dead, the circular coldness of the commode, the blank stretches of uncaring snow, and the color surround of your eyes. It is Marta buses and panties peeking over the tops of pants and gnashing teeth and balms for burns and captioned letters across tvs in a bar where waitresses place white napkins down and snorted up fat, chalky white lines of withdrawn hurt in locked bathrooms. White is the light that projects my dreams against the backs of my eyelids; white is the last thing that will register when I expire; white is the burn and the embrace and the dissolving of a solid into a gas and into a general glow against the face of God above. White is innocence, white is fear, white is purity, and white is the emptiness that contains all things.

Mirror, Mirror

The dashboard screams alarming colors of warning, fearful hues that project danger but have no ability to extend aid, correct, or reconstruct the damage of which it alarms or alerts. The gears grind onward in circular patterns and add friction to inertia in a physics prediction of machine life, slice it in half with neglect. The walk seems so much longer and arduous with these ill-fitting shoes; blisters form and shine like hidden supernovas on trodden feet that only point blankly across non-directional milestones of away, gone, i-hate-your-face, and never-ever-more. Misguidance bleeds and rubs raw and causes much confusion in a heavy blanket of blindness of the steps plodded, the words absorbed with bruises, the brushes of reality that make one sigh heavily in thankfulness, or cringe in shameful recollection. My skin is fresh, easily burned, and wounds are still there even if the scabs and band-aids and gauze have been bravely discarded. I tread lightly amidst the throngs of pointless parameters and aiding abetters; where am I going, face of reflection and future?

Unforgettable

Brief Haiku

They ask of me things-
I release structured
Inner demons too.

Catch and release us;
The voice moves time through hurt,
Like silvery fish.

Listen, aches, wording-
I'm naked on a bed;
Where are you tonight?

Reality Slaps Hard

It doesn't hurt but rather it only annoys me
The junk and trash and smack and slander you sling
While your pride burns into your grasp on reality
That you've been bested, you've been burned,
Your image in the mirror is distorting, a carnival reflection
And the walls you clammer and stab to find stability
Turn out to be vaporous and phantasmagorical
And fake...
Which riles your blood and paints your cheek red with shame
And coats you in foolishness in the black hours
Of self-reflection when you should be sleeping

Because you rise in the morning mean as an alley-cat,
And with blood-thirst, and sadistic tendencies,
And retribution coating your gnashing teeth
That can only be brushed away and dismissed
When I'm gone, dead, disappeared, perhaps dismembered...
But are you going to kill the world? Will you delete the
slip ups, the ooops, the disassociation, the removed attention,
the less-than-perfect-you that you blame me for causing,
From their minds, or my dead dreams or memories,
Or transcendental penitence?
Forgive yourself, Grow, or Understand you weren't
The distortion your ego whispered you were in your colluding vanity.
You are better, you are more: Find who you are
And leave who I am to me.

2 GBU Shoes=True

A clatter,
Amidst chit-chatter;
You can tell by my face that it matters.

Onward, shived-blood drops;
Leaving is harder than previously thought.

"Yes, I would rather..."

Boot-delivered shatter
Gone, so gone.

Died tonight for relief.

Pain transforms into ache.

Goodbye inward waste.

Future rides a drifty leaf.

Attraction

It is not a name or face or tactile sensation, rather it is breathless, open ambiguity. The slick-wet tongue twists sounds across intonations and lingering eyes lock deep into private feelings of warmth, and desire, and shame, and reckless abandonment. These accidental touches electrify that scare of crossing imagination into reality, leaving each with separate unfulfilled aches, reasons, and reactions. This dream of you, fogging my waking thoughts, crosses over into an unexpected morning elevator ride and those edges of our nervous smiles are reflections of hurt-riddled loneliness and unfulfillment which simply cannot choke off climbing vines of hope. A name feels good to express across my lips as if it were a kiss carried on the projected light of my inner burning for the one that is forbidden by inexpression, situational disruption, or society's bitter scrutiny. Dreams, locked so deeply inside, seep out on channels of kindness, compassion, care within renegade, intuitive impulse. Without ever saying it aloud, we have carved soft recesses of retreat into one another's embrace, curled whirlwind connections into cat's cradle puzzles of our lives' histories, and crossed into places which are inaccessible to share with mechanics of the brain. No picture, no position, no "move", no experience: just hot-sexy, unspoken tenderness willing for embrace.

Connections

One minute of connected thoughts based off the word Karate. Kind of like 7 Degrees of Separation, but more like one minute of connection due to boredom.

Karate
Bloody Nose
Beepers
Heart Monitors
Airports are like Hospitals
Sunsets
Prayer
Amelia
Painting my apartment
Curtis
Bicycle Chain
The Smiths
Zits
Scrambled Eggs

Reflection Portrait

Take your life as a collage and capture it, mixing the feelings and experiences and disruptions into something presentable to outsiders of your life. Blend the borders to mend the breaks and divides, the pits and failed perceptions, the unfulfilled dreams. Smooth the edges of excellence--which already cause you to smile inside in your recollections--and make them light up your entire effort. Take the blackened crust of ruination and smear it, lighten it, add brightness to it, and tell the tale for some other so that you don't have to harbor that caustic burn like shame, and so that some unnamed behind you in life's line can learn...like the colors of poisonous snakes or tick bites or hot stoves when you are a child.
Make the collage extraordinary, break molds and tempt fate. Lean on instinct and feel when to let your mind go and your fingers deliver. Take all that shit that is within you and splatter it for all to see in ways their eyes have never viewed things before now. Keep those colorful expansions of your spirit in bright accents to contrast the hurt, lifting the hearts and making the thoughtful breathe in with refreshment. Show your wonderful, gifted life for all it is and for all it is worth. Display that it can be more than the languid feelings hinder...be the most illuminated of the ever-expansive night sky, for you already are...

Cloudy

He became a cloud as easily as he had become anything else in his life. The cloud was expansive, fitting all forms and spreading or contracting upon suggestion. He arrived in the cloud inside of the lull of day, when time moved so slowly that his body dissipated into something other than human-formed atoms. His soul shifted into something more transcendent, evolving, unconfined and abstract, and the moment his napping eyes snapped open he no longer had eyes. He had long stretches of mist and vapor and curls of air transfixed between two different physical forms. His eyes were tactile feelings and his emotions pulled or stretched his form embodiment on relaxation or tension.

At first he simply floated on top of the wind current, trepidation causing him to cling the breathy ends of himself into a tighter unit for fear of dispersion of who he used to be. But after a couple of miles of floating, his breath shaped him into undefined representations of how he wished he could present his inside feelings as a human, as a normal person although he was now cloudlike and removed from those ideals. The paranoia of losing himself into the winds was unfounded; he stretched far to the horizon in a thin, wispy layer and retained his permanence. He concentrated himself into an impressive rain cloud and noticed the darkening of his coloring as his intensity and focus intermixed. He made his intentions into very random forms and reliefs and accents, often comedic or representational, above or around the terrain he crossed.

His speed of travel was rated by the current, by the activity of motion of his surrounding forces. He could only constrict into an impossibly gray, menacing enormity to lag his clip. Or to gain distance he would spread out in a line or thinly extend across all directions and cover incredible distances in his redundant circular flow. Not once did he ever think to seep into thick fog, or to hover over, oh say a swamp or cemetery or valley; he moved, he glided, he exhaled expansion and inhaled molecular concentrated activity. He did not remember beyond himself and he had no perceived goal or destination. Wondering if he was alone, he leaked rain quietly over a familiar neighborhood and place and time, mourning his ever-fading passage.

Friday, May 26th, 2006

I don't know if you are still living, still feeling, still reeling, still breathing, still alive, still yearning, still aching, still in touch with It.

It: the hurt the smashing the retching the ruination the dismay the dried eyes the callousness the financial crunch the carelessness the clueless direction the unconcern the uncouth the cotton-mouth the cashless sharing the call-soon the cold shoulder the crying the crouch of fear the call-back-please the clouded consciousness of It.

I do, tonight, feel It because the effects seep like pollution.

Slow Passing Time

The cable runs along the top of the windows, looped in segments of a couple of feet, and it ties into an electrical sensor that, when pulled, generates a light on the dash of the bus, a message of "Stop Requested" across the scrolling light board hanging from the ceiling, and (if you're lucky) an imperative voice that says "Stop Requested!". You have to pull this cable before the stop or else you walk back to where you were supposed to get off. If you pull this cable after someone else has already triggered the response, which happens to a lot of non-observant earphone-clad riders, you get nothing except looks from other people. The handicapped riders have their own special button that sits on their laps. Sometimes the cable doesn't work on one side or the other and you have to get folks on the opposite side of the bus, the side that has a working cable, to pull it for you when you need to stop. The cable is like the reigns of a great, white rectangle of a horse. It, indeed, does arrest the forward motion generated by harnessed horsepower.

When we get past the last bus stop before my stop, inches after we cross the threshold of stopping so as to commit no confusion to the driver, I grab that cable. Sometimes others beat me to the pull, but mostly I make the driver stop at the next possible, allowable stop. I need not even grab the damn cable; all drivers know my routine. I've fallen asleep on the way home, late at night after being out at some bar with unfamiliar singing folks or wrapped up in indecency of some sort, and the driver will ask a rider to nudge me and idle impatiently until I rise-mumble incoherant gratitude-and exit. But in the coherant, bladder-filled afternoons usually I grab the cable and immediately put my travel bag over my shoulder as I walk to the front. I like my bus drivers. Bus drivers put up with a LOT of bullshit on their marches back and forth over their routes, like junkyard dogs they are in their protective zones, but also like patient hippos ferrying dull-witted, lazy birds on their unconcerned back they tend to glide to and fro.

I talked to the driver, my better driver friend (the drivers alternate), and told him that I won't be seeing him so much anymore. He asked why and I told him I was going to finally do it, I'll be buying the Rusty Turd this weekend. After I explained the price and condition and history of the truck, he countered that I might still be seeing him more than I thought...and he might be right. We smiled, I departed while wishing him luck, and the bus moved on in a roar and bustle of movement.

I went into the same old store, the one closest to my house which causes me to walk a mile home after the bus drops me off, and I thought: "Life is moving onward. I'm to the point where I'm going to miss the bus rides. I'm changing..."

My Quiet Friend

Push against them, the whole tide of opposition, for they come with sharpened teeth and they know only killing. It hurts to feel their pestilence inside me, to know they are coursing inside this deflated body, this boy that once rode his bike and believed in Santa Claus and dreamed he'd grow up to be a spy like J. Bond. Now I clutch, I grab, I cringe, I crave and I claw and I have totally lost control of everything that I thought I had grasped on my escape from my sinking boat. These accusatory eyelids define me quietly in the night and I blink in rememberance daily the whiplashes of shame and regret and hindsight they broadcast to me in the coffee vapors of my artifical-light mornings. And you look at me and try not to shake your head because of the things you see that equal what you have already learned in your miranda rights life. And I shake my head with resignation for you, because you are right and I am lost, so I shift to scratching at the two dollars in my pocket, and no longer register the headache because of the ache of the crushing, dirty presence of the tide inside. These days, despite the outpouring of care, I feel the dying inside all too often. And it tastes like metal, or beer, or contaminated smoke, or bitter-caustic "what if?". I stare at the sky; hope, my quiet friend...

K and C

A. Share
2. Double Barrel
3. Is A Crowd
4. Downcast
5. Hope
6. Potlatch Croupier
7. Connecting Tones
8. Riddle Redundancy
9. Contest/Confess
10. Emulation
J. Contrast/Compare
Q. Subdivision
K. Homogenous Influx

The Blackest Night

Fear--it raped my sense of security, of boundaries, in a scythe swipe. I shook, my body racked with confusion and panic and adrenaline. I heard the noises again and tried to process in my overloaded mind my next move. The gun, a trigger, turn out the lights and tiptoe. Breathe quietly, silently...and don't forget to breathe...while my very alert senses configured my next action. The gun was hardly a noticeable weight in my tense hand but it was a comfort, and a concern. Would I put a bullet into someone, maybe. This decision struck me as odd, as I tensed against the wall out of the light to avoid shadow movements. These new standards of living and dying were the products of fear. I began to pray with my eyes wide open.

Curved Rhythms

Curved Rhythms-
Can’t stop wondering where this path ends
how far this line of sight extends
what direction this map line plots

Her words freeze across my lips like icicles
and shake my warmth into packages
that look like fancy-wrapped chocolates
that have been left in the hot car
and have now become a ruined gift

These pink mornings extend into the
heat of bright white and light blue
and onward into the gray overhanging tones
of rain and wetness, before casting
purple shadows leaking blackness;
pinpoints of night when I finally find rest

She closes me inside my words
capturing me in the meanings I leave
for her with flowers and stolen kisses.
While her mind still slumbers I have touched
her on her heart with my exploding belief
silently, that cannot be taken away.

False/Fade/Find/Fortunate

Tonight I slicked up my hair, wore a new shirt-open three buttons in the front and sleeves rolled up to right under my elbow-over a simple white t-shirt, some well-fitted pants, and flip flops. Oh, and my hidden-from-view-but-there new belt, and felt kinda cool for a couple of hours.

Why? What defines me by this choice of attire, this display? Is my self confidence and status based on fashion? Well, no. Not at all. But this was a night to have fun. It is Cinco De Mayo and I wanted to get out of the house, please!

My wonderful friend, and P&C teammate, Amelia came and grabbed me out of my doldrums for an adventure on the town. Amelia is the COOLEST chick, I'm so very lucky to have her as a good friend. Anyway, she was looking quite hot and I was either looking cool or looking like someone who is trying to look cool but whatever, we went out.

We went to a local place that is usually ok, but tonight it was kinda lame. We sat down and after ordering our $2 Coronas some jackass comes up and claims I'm sitting in his seat. No chairs were even in this section of the bar, we had to move some into our spot, and the whole place is not crowded at all...so this guy is just being an asshole. I stay quiet and listen to see how much he is going to sound off about his seat. He continues on for two or three sentences and then finally settles in next to me.

Apparently everyone around the bar, for lack of anything better to do on this fine Mexican holiday, has witnessed the situation and are looking at this guy like me and Amelia are, which is "what a drip". He then changes his tune and wants to be friends, introducing himself and apologizing profusely with transparent false pretenses amidst many "good natured" back slaps on me. If we didn't have full beers we would've left, just on principle that this place sucks from the jump. He then shifts into introspection and remains quiet the rest of our time there, thank goodness.

The entire place is lecherous, old and ineffectual and tagged by the contents of their wallets...or blonde, fake, laughing or sipping on bought drinks, and wondering how long until they can go blast away their respective positions by bright white in a dirty bathroom.

Amelia is not blonde, the only female in the room not blonde, and is bright, talented, funny, witty, and enthralling. And soon all those wallets are cutting eyes to her, insulting the blondes and suffocating poor Amelia. Then they look at the chump to her right: me. "What does this goof have?"

Respect, not that I need to reply. We finish our beers and leave this insulation of the self-damned. We end up at Taco Mac, the old haunt. Peace and love and nachos and conversation and clarity. The night unfolds, the rhythm shifts, and we are syncho de my ohh.

Driving home I explain the shades of drum and bass vs. house music styles of turntablism and feel human, complete and understood. I write this in thankfulness for a great friend. Thanks Amelia!

Earth Turns On Hurt

Questioning drops
Of crumbling quiet
With golden words
Is confined misplacement.

Can you reach across
Sunset-streaked colors
To find my contentment
Without you?

I remember clearly-
Birthday morning overcast,
Sleepy-eyed surprise;
Shines in a dark place.

A year has passed
Since that promise.
Lessons burned,
Goodbye.

Honeysuckle

Erosion

Cut away the fat, carve the meat from the bone, dice and slice and mince and pinch and tense the calm, the good, the right, the positive in the carver's kitchen, in the meat locker, in the court room, in the pitch-black bedroom, inside yourself in an unconcerned crowd.

Do it again the next day, the day following, the rest of the week, the week after that, then continue onward as if that is what life is...the beating on yourself, the hobbling, the binding, the bending, the breaking.

Turn off your eyes and ears and heart and mind and life and blood for things you cannot change but are married to, enjoined with, infused into, burned by, melded...and stop making them hurt you long after the caustic bright chemical reaction, emotional poignancy, intellectual delve, sexual twist or careless cluelessness disperses.

Leave these rainy nightmares of the sticky, putrid past to fade, discard that dark hue that climbs out in rancid, acidic sweat to taint the sweet-rose dawn of each breaking day, and believe there is more, so much more, beyond now.

Derail

Another of my found writings, which just show me how far I've travelled since this feeling made me take pen to paper to permanence.

Can’t feel anything in this flight from you or myself and the empty roar within in me. My thoughts are scattered across the past, present, and future in a reconstructed haze of recollected premonitions. Your nose-wipe life befouls any dash to restitiution and deadens the point of the directional needle. Where is which-way, and who are they; am I to confuse when with how? Riddles for the sake of insanity and limbo read like obituaries in my latestest yellow journalism sensational. Hot off the press, lingering bathroom piss, tortured daily remiss: derailment of bliss.

TooL

Tool's new album 10,000 Days is out now. Go get it and freak yourself out, you deserve it.

Follow up: Yep, it freaks me out. Tool never ceases to amaze me and conjure up strange rhythms and imagery. Sometimes spooky, sometimes driven and forceful, but always, forever original and unique.

Rehabilitation

What hurts most in things of the past that turned out bad?

Is it the memory of the event? Or the pain endured because of actions?
Is it the hurt of being wronged? Or the guilt of craving revenge?
Is it the confusion and the bluffed feeling?
Or is it the letdown of knowing that you are human, that despite your best defenses you are still capable of being injured?

Or maybe it is that hard-swallow, sinking, Sucker feeling of bitter regret due to events, courses, actions, or words?

And if that hurt can be narrowed into any definite source, can it be erased? Eradicated? Overcome?

What makes hurt? And why do we continue to hurt others, as humans, after we have felt such pain from that action?

Time Capsule

Finding old things, forgotten pieces of a life before mine, connects me to my father. I am fixing up my mom's backyard as her birthday gift. It is an large project involving saws, machetes, rakes, wheelbarrows, bags, etc. Today I found the wheelbarrow had a flat. Easy to fix, but my toolbox was in the bedroom. Instead I went into the old shed out back. My father's long-unused tools sat quietly in his large chest, the kind of tool container you see in a garage when you are talking to Joe 6-Pack about how you accidentally hit the curb (leaving out the alcohol content) and why your car pulls to the right, while Joe just looks at you like are talking too fast for him.

In this toolchest I found order, care, and surprising cleanliness. This was a peek at my father's way of doing things before the confusion came over him like a rising tide. I found tools that I had no way of using, from sheer confusion of their purpose as well as lacking something as massive as the tools were meant to be used upon, and amidst the connection to my father's past I managed to find some things that could remove the wheelbarrow wheel. After some air at the local gas-n-sip from the 50-cent pump, I was back and removing sticks and crap with renewed vigor.

I was careful to put my father's tools back where they belonged. They are, still, my father's tools and I merely borrowed them for the task at hand. He doesn't need tools these days, but I respect them as if he would come out and give the toolchest an inspection. I know his hands curved around the handles and put the sockets in with the adapters, so I replace them in the same manner. I wipe my grease-covered fingers with a rag he most surely wiped his hands and tools with sometime in the foggy past.

This is the closest I've been to my father in 18 years and it filled me with content and satisfaction. Thanks Dad.

Hope Searches

Take a rectangle, put inside a picture of us behind the glass surface, and clasp it there. Turn the angle of the frame by the tips of the wooden edge and cast the sunlight of your captured remembrance across the surface, dancing shadows into the corners of this static feeling. See how the light cascades across your frozen smile? See the shine flip back in my blue eyes? Does that make you remember the things that smolder in these days of physical separation? That confined, stiff portrait is only a frame of the moments of life, of time...of things now known and conquered and encapsulated. Tell me unknown things instead of those scared feelings, the fears of hurt and regret and the septic past. Who talks of the days of the unknown without trepidation?..only those seeking the unestablished sugar-coated in hope.

Verbal Pink, Orange, and Red

Thorns rip me across exposed skin in my haste to blend into the thicket of woods and brambles. Solitude and serenity is my quest; a simple thrill in viewing the sunset alone, undisturbed and introspective, from a hidden natural setting. I bleed as I sit amidst the stunted-growth trees and pine needles and granite. It is Friday evening. I don't need a shower or clean clothes or phone calls or money or cigarettes or car keys or problems or rubbers or anyone. I crave this simple departure into the force of life that is bigger than any creature on the face of this earth. I managed to make it in time--time being relative to the turning of the earth and the clarity of the sky and the position my butt is resting--to absorb what too many people simply take for granted if noticed, blocked with sunglasses or sunvisors, or cursed/craved from behind a restrictive window.

Melding light and emotions and existence into the passing colors of tonight's sunset alters my direction and outlook on my life. It isn't easily described the inspirational power to alter in hues my life, or the opportunity to let the passing of time affect me merely in a reflection of skycast light, but the hum inside my body resonates from this event. And my earthly form was changed, my soul was touched from a bright-white source, and my thoughts were reconstructed based upon my deviation from my draining, deluding ritual of happiness or fun.

I've been impressed upon, influenced, motivated. How do you capture the passing of time in words? A picture would simplify the event. Words are harder; truly try to write about a sunset sometime and see for yourself. I chose to write this out of a day of thoughts, situations, and adventures for sheer survival of the captured beauty I shared with forces greater than I. Words are cheap, positive thoughts are lucky, impressions are rare, and finding the footpath of direction develops the receipent blessed to experience the transformation into motion and permanence. This is gratitude.

Myself

For Shannon Fisher, a good friend who is truly missed. This represents how I imagined his last moments to be...

When shadows creep, talons piercing deep, time drips slowly and the edges of fear bear sharpness.

When darkness pours, inside the wind's howling roar, forcing me to crawl and hide, disgusted inside.

When the feelings surround, an empty, hollow sound, the wide open abounds, and I breathe sadness.

When the hope-glow flickers, a solitary lingering sliver, a loneliness is triggered, echoing notes of failure;

Here within myself.

The World of Drum and Bass (ATL)

Strobed light cut across faces and bodies in time to the pulsation of volume, and blood and hearts. The room sprawled to the walls free of obstructions execpt for the support columns, and the colored lights danced across angles of floor and wall and dancers. The din of the explosive bass shakes my body, vibrates my privates, locks a timeframe into my observation, forces unconscious tick and twitches of my body respoding to the flow of input.

I twisted in time to the rhythm and felt myself loosen inside, lacking that clench of stress and the soft stab of hurt, clinging to the balance of light and energy and flow and music and possibility.

My cuz, DJ Jubei, shouted something in my ear that made me smile and I kept looking to the head-bent turntablist onstage and shifting my body to the beat. The beer was cold in my hand, acting as a counter-weight to my gyrations, I suddenly felt a little pooped. My journey was in need of rest, so I found a couch. And while sitting I watched many a person on their night...seeing the skimpy buckhead chicks, the gays, the drunks, the guy that ate too many drugs, my cousin dancing. All of these separated for the girl with the twirly light thingy.

And the night shortly changed after I asked her if I could buy her a drink. And the beat played onward and the buckheads still danced and the gays still showed me how to dress better...but she defined the night, the moment, and the future...which is up to her.

I remember hearing High Contrast...and that's about it.

28 Miles To Go

The adventures of some evenings redefine you, and I had one of those evenings last night. I still wear the gift you gave me, never removing it since your tender fingers placed it on me. It encircles the pulse of my blood with hope and care. You find it hard to believe words that you know and feel are true. Your hand in mine, the laughter of smiling souls, the closeness of your warmth against me; you feel deep inside a stirring that is greater than words can portray. I am patiently waiting for you to decide how willing you are to step into something that is bigger than you ever imagined, and I will be there waiting for you regardless of your decision.

Next

On Forward Ahead Gone (For Jen)

Time has passed over the hurt, and our mistakes have been transversed, and things continually change around that pain point in each of our lives...but we fail to notice it, like the tired traveller on a bus who naps through the sunset and wakes disconcerted in the surrounding darkness.

We blunder onward into that black forecast, wiping the memories from our eyes with petulant fists of frustration. The vision clears briefly enough to ache, then blurs into misgivings, then crosses focal paths in a nexus of care and hate, then blinks to forget. This happens 33 times a second, and is relived in new actuality with each rendition.

Walking across my dreams, midnight and silent, your footprints whisper into my daylight hours. I know that you see life differently after my time with you. Two broken people plod into everyday drama with broken perceptions and burdened with passionate distaste.

We are still together in that we are both half-ruined, missing our love, stinging from errors, unable to trust, and blindly moving on...forward...ahead...until gone.

Published, kind of

I've been published. I'm not posting the link for very particular reasons, but let's say that in the same vein of me proudly proclaiming that I dance, this is me proudly stating that an intensely difficult part of my life is now over...and I'm fighting against the scourge that hurt me, my loved ones, and so many others.

It feels very liberating to talk somewhat openly about what hurt me, ruined me, redefined me, lessened me, and broke me. To be able to scream back against this insanity makes my heart proud.

Thank you especially to my family and friends for your love, concern, direction, and heartfelt care. I love and truly respect each one of you who sparkled shine on my rotten life.

Gratefully giving back what you gave me,
Mark

Blue Reflection Pools

(Background note: when I went to DC last year I stood in front of the long reflecting pools in front of various monuments throughout the 18-plus blocks [blocks are a helluva lot longer up North...for ATL folks, imagine walking from Lil' 5 Points to the Fox Theater] I walked from the Mall in DC. I took long gazes at myself and pondered my life. I came home and proposed to my now ex. But more than that misguided attempt, I saw something in that blue reflection that looked back at me with roaring insight, unfortunately never understood until later. But I knew I would see that cerulean-azure mirror again, like a premonition, and it would be even deeper in meaning for me. I found it.)

I observe more than you show or allow me to see. I feel things that we can't mention. I want, through barriers of doubt or guilt, to taste lips that are locked from my velvety tingle. I need that reflex that quivers in the back of my spine, that one I see you shudder from as well.

Can't you stretch past doubts and fears to embrace these heartfelt offerings I give to you? Can you overcome those blackened-past flashes to paint new beginnings?

I stand here waiting for you in the color splash of a new morning. I'm hesitating for you, to make sure you're on this train with me.

Where are you?

Inner Glow

My previous post combined respect and art in a digital expression. And that felt refreshing. New shine...

I hope all who read this (I see you Santa!) understand that I'm changing. I feel things of old slipping away. I feel the urges and haunts of the recent past ease or lessen. I feel that hard, thorn-edged road transition into an asphalt sidewalk. Those hurtful nights have become only bad dreams that eventually lessen in each days' light.

Transformation is good, natural, and mostly out of my control. Direction is my rudder, alteration is nature's course; prayer and wisdom are two laterns for the unknown and unfamiliar path. But inner shine is the divining rod, which is faith.


But, oh yeah...evil...

You witches and loser lackeys...it is time for you to disappear. I'm no longer available for your sorrowful stories or downward pull--be gone from me now. I wish you away, not luck on your confused demise slide.

I will not change my phone number, or my address, or my desire to succeed. You will not be around long enough to pose any real problem to my direction anyway, so fall away now...like the dead leaf you've become.

The hard days teach lessons to those with ears capable of listening. I've become solid, rooted in feeling positive about this crazy cycle of days called "Life".

Beware: no one, especially not a junky, broken, fuck up like you, will take that away from me ever again.

Move on panhandlers of goodness, I've nothing to offer you...

I'm too busy sharing to want to give or take. Try it sometime. Sheesh, just try living....it is nice here.

Arty Mood II

Not much to say tonight. I'm preternaturally quiet. I'm listening to Gary Allan and thinking about life. Here's a tribute piece to my friend Dan. He drew this and I "borrowed" it and did a remix. Hope you don't mind Dan. I only did it because I like it so very much. It just made my creative side come out, and that says your work is quality to me when you make me open Photoshop on a whim at 1 am. Folks, Dan's artistic creation is on the left and my late-night remix is on the right.

The Safety Dance

I like to dance.

Not ballroom dancing or the cha-cha or anything established...well, maybe the robot just for comedic effect...but I miss dancing. I used to go all the time for a couple of months with someone I no longer connect with and I miss that freedom and energy.

My buddy Heather started up a conversation about dancing today. Apparently she takes group lessons with a tall friend of hers and they are learning multiple styles of dancing. I believe she was to learn the Foxtrot this evening. It sounded like a lot of fun, you know...watching it. Unfortunately the organizers of those group lessons don't generally allow folks to come and loom at folks trying to learn to dance. I think it would be great though; serve some hot-dogs, popcorn, and veggie burgers and some beverages to wash it down, and the audience could generate more revenue for the group than the students.

But anyway, I was talking to Heather about dancing and it was readily apparent how dance is soooo very different and personal to someone. For Heather, she was open and shared with me that she was taking these group lessons and how she was feeling like she had to find someone close to her height and that she might be the one ending up leading the lesson.

I had a completely different conversation. I was literally admitting that I liked to dance. That was HUGE for me a year ago. I used to abhor dancing and anything closely related because I was so scared and unskilled in that activity. Then things changed. Music changed. Dancing changed. I suddenly found myself feeling music to the point where I was involuntarily lifting my legs and moving my head and finding the rhythm...and being overjoyed by the experience.

And that's when I met my dancer friend and we had quite a few adventures. But dancing was more an experience of appreciating a form of music and letting my body express that closeness and not the socio-awkward, chick-picking-up kind of scene that had scared and tainted me in high school.

I felt good to join in Heather's appreciation for dance and to admit to a friend that I liked it too, under certain and narrow circumstances, but it was a relief. I felt we got closer because of our talk.

And it made me want to dance so bad here on this Wednesday night of blah. The lights, the energy, the sweating bodies and swooping hair and captured glances. I miss it.

The "Cool" Haircut

You are only as "cool" as you a)live up to in your daily life, and b)think you are. The subjectivity of "cool" bears little influence on the act or portrayal or motions of cool; cool is usually decided after the act either by steely, hard liquor drinking juries of jaded, resigned folks, the lost, or a gabbering gaggle of after-the-fact'ers chattering to hear the chatter.

How cool is your "cool"?

This post is not going how I planned it and therefore it is fitting in perfectly with my point: cool is felt as well.

Do you feel good about the things you did today? Yeah, it was cool.

How was the date? It was cool.

Has your artwork being going well? Yeah, things are cool.

These answers, though vague, are truly heartfelt and positive. Why would you say your date the other night was cool if it wasn't? You wouldn't. You'd say "we had fun" or "good food, bad breath" or something like that. Cool wasn't even in the equation because overall the night wasn't very cool, not like the cool that was hoped for from the adventure.

Now, cool is false confidence too. Taking the side of the late-chirper chorus I've personally witnessed numerous displays of complete UNcoolness going on in some clown who KNOWS that they are "cool". And that is pretty hilarious. Unfortunately I was that clown today.

I got a haircut the other day and it significantly altered folks' perception of my appearance. In the workplace is the most amplified setting to reflect a cross-sampling of your new look. So, I've had folks looking at me a little differently, some smiling and some just looking.

I waltzed in work this morning, big smile on my face and spanky-new dippty-do hair thing going on, and pretty much knew I was cool. So cool was I that I didn't even worry about "cool". I pass some ladies and they smile real big and say good morning. Wow! Folks have really been nice to me this morning!

I remembered the Marta bus driver who just kept talking to me this morning; I thought of those on the train that suddenly, and very oddly, struck up conversations on the commute into town; then there was those people in the elevator that seemed to be in a good mood, usually the elevator is so moody and quiet.

I just shrugged and felt cool, going to get my next cup of coffee in the breakroom. The morning folks had smiles on their faces for me and I just smiled back. Darn amazing, this haircut! I head back to my desk, more hellos and smiles, and get to work.

Second cup of coffee down, my bladder begins to lament from the liquid burden. I head to the bathroom, walk up to the urinal and go to unzip. Funny, the zipper is already down. OH MAN! Seems I've had it down all throughout the commute, through the sidewalks of my work, the security guard ladies, the ride up to the 15th floor, and 2 honkin' cup of coffee trips through the breakroom. Hey everyone, here's my PP! Come look!! Watch me forget about my PP from, like, 2 hours ago!!!!

Not very cool at all.

Arty Mood

Dan said: "I dig both images (referencing my earlier Pens and Needles entry). Very cool! Post some more!"

Well, ok Dan. I made a new image for you. I took a picture of my pens that I'm using on my project and used that to create a weird scene picture in photoshop. Hope you like it.

2C: Introduction

I always sleep on the bus, it is the way I manage to get to work some days, but his inquisitive tone snapped me awake immediately. I kept my eyes shut, feigning the shaky, bouncing sleep known to those who nap on buses, but I was all ears.

"2C? What in the f* are you talking about?"

2C? Was it a new robot? A version of the Grand Maquis I'd never heard of? What?

He continued on after some moments of quiet listening.

"So, you're telling me this C2, no 2C, is the new thing? How come I've never heard of it?

Now I was riveted to the conversation.

"...well, what the f* am I supposed to do with it? How many n* you see asking for 2C? Sound like bulls* to me...no, you try it and let ME know what the f* I'm supposed to do with it!"

2C...hmmm, I'd never heard of it either. Not that I'm some expert on illegal drugs or anything, but I do know my fair share either from the internet or my ex-fiance. And 2C was definitely one I'd never heard of. Heck, sounded more like a vitamin supplement or a bra size.

"You do what now?! Eat it? How much...no fool, how much do you eat, shorty?"

I could no longer keep my eyes shut. This was fascinating news, much more interesting than the Marta tv feed.

"Milligrams? Sh*, how am I supposed to measure that out?"

I wondered too.

"Nawwww, leave me out of that sh*. I just want the rock and the 'dro. 15 minutes. I DON"T CARE what I'm missin'!" I hear some muttered expletives and and then quiet.

I went back to napping...and woke up 8 stops past my work. Damn! Monday morning for sure. The entire yawning walk to work I kept wondering about the 2C conversation.

Folks, there's something new on the loose. Lock up the kids and cancel allowances. Alert the hospitals, the mental institutions, welfare, the cops, and even the Red Cross. Now we've got some shite called 2C to contend with and if history has taught us anything...then it'll soon be a problem like all the others that came before it.

And this comes from a retired hippy.

Pens and Needles

Messin' around with an image I was messing around with from a pen and ink drawing I'm currently messing around with. I took the top mini dv snapshot of a small part of my project and turned it into the image below it in Photoshop. Crazy.

Remembering Becoming Me

I've been flashing back to this certain memory of an event in my past lately. It is so strange, it just popped up out of the swirling abyss of my mental sludge and keeps floating up to the top. I hadn't thought about this event in ten or fifteen years and boom! out it emerges and now keeps nagging at me. I figure I'm meant to write it out.

I was fourteen or fifteen years old and we were all on a church retreat. I was heavily involved in our church growing up and I used to go on retreats and choir tours and mission trips all the time. My best friend, Brian (aka B), was a churchgoer as well and we'd crack ourselves up over many, many miles of lonely roads going here or there. Man, we sure were goofy but it was such innocent fun.

This retreat was at a college up in the mountains of Georgia or North Carolina, I can't remember, and many other youth groups from various churches all merged at a college for a long weekend of study, praise, singing, meeting others, and just being together. We slept in dorm rooms and spent the day in classes and doing activities.

At this point in my life I was very into skateboarding, punk rock music, and girls. I hated posers, zits, scrambled eggs (me and B's term for the confusion caused by chicks), and all orders of dorks. These likes and dislikes were pillars of our life and we were hardcore and ardent supporters or completely anti whatever we decided was cool or totally beat. Black and white. We both were quite radical and alternative souls in our Southern Baptist group, but well liked and good kids.

We would have our meals in the college cafeteria and these times were the highlights of the day. We'd get to see other groups, scope out the chicks, look for like-minded individuals like ourselves, and generally crack each other up with our exclamations and observations. B was and is one of the funniest humans on the face of the earth, and I"m sure he'd say the same about me, and I swear we both had 6-pack abs from all the years of complete hilarity we shared together.

There was a youth group from Canton, GA, that had some skater and freestyle kids in their mix. They made their way over to our table and sat with us and we all hit it off right off the bat. It was like we'd all grown up together we melded so well. Well, lunch ended and our groups dispersed in various directions for the afternoon activites. B ran on up ahead to do something and left us as we dwadled our way to the dorms.

One of the guys from Canton mentioned he had brought his skateboard and so had two other guys. We talked about how we'd love to go riding down the hills of the campus and it suddenly occurred to him that, in fact, he had brought an extra skateboard too. That's all it took.

We went to the dorm room, grabbed the boards, and set out to explore the campus. The guys were about as good as me; they could ollie higher and better, but I could do G-turns and powerslides better, even on some unfamiliar board. We were having a good old time, the classes and activities and retreat completely gone from our minds. Skating and laughing and swapping stories and just being kids, and completely lost track of time.

Well, it started to get dark and we all were getting hungry. We head to the cafeteria to get some grub and the place is locked up and empty. Reality began to settle into our thoughts and we were all quiet. The campus seemed different, kind of alien, and not at all the welcoming skate park of the afternoon. I handed the board back to my new pal and walked alone to my dorm.

I entered into the main room and my entire church group was gathered there having a serious prayer session. When I opened the door, all eyes in the room lifted from the bowed position and locked on me. Instantly everyone was in a flurry. I walked straight into the room and began to sit down but one of the chaperones, B's Dad to be exact, sternly said, "Go to your room Mark, right now." It was cold and aloof as I passed by all of my church group, barely daring to look at B on the way out.

In the hallway the stern voice became an angry voice that demanded answers from me.
"Where have you been?"
"Do you know that we've been very worried about you?"
"Why did you go off like that?"

On and on. I couldn't stay in the room with Brian that night, I had to have a counselor in my room with me. I didn't sleep much, wondering over and over all night how I could just break away from everyone and go skating with some folks I hardly knew. And I felt bad because I had just left B, just split and went off, and that was what really made me feel guilty. The next morning I didn't see the Canton skater guys in the cafeteria and we all packed up and went home. The feeling on the trip back was as if the entire bus had passed judgement on me, distanced themselves. No one was rude, but no one tried to talk to me either. Even Brian was quiet and we just listened to Oingo Boingo or something on the headphones and wished we could get home quicker, even though home was boring as hell. And when I did get home, I didn't say anything to my Mom about it. I just took my skateboard and went riding, wondering about the guys from Canton and trying to ollie higher and better.

Right Here, Right Now, and a beer

Right Here, RIGHT F-ing now!

(the following is a list of thoughts in my mind as I finish this tall beer)

Art transcends emotions and evokes thoughts.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is worth your life. And no person should ever dare to try to take happiness from me again.

My mind dwells in the dark less the more I stay active.

Global Warming Sux! I just had a hornet attack me IN my bedroom.

My new friend Dan and I will do positive contributions to art and life in our friendship.

Mogwai is the most underrated band ever. No doubts.

I love my job and no one there is going to make me ever not enjoy my job...so make your ass aware of that banner team.

I feel like skateboarding down the street on my buddy Rob's longboard.

I sure wish I had learned airbrushing when I had the chance.

Marta has some major issues.

It is hard to find a voice in my writing for the newsletter. It seems as if I'm creating a new one, which is odd but offers hope.

I miss my cat worse than my ex. I miss my ex the most in that I cringe at remembering all that closeness lost to a drug, a refusal to change, a watered-down commitment, a dream of truth fading into ghostly vapors.

I've got to escape this place. I've got to get out. I've got to be gone. I've got to go...

Busch beer, while priced ok and not too bad on the ol' taste buds, just isn't the way to go. "Head to the mountains" because that's where the good stuff is sold!

Well, that's the end of my beer and my captured time experiment. Hmmm, whatever.

Valentine's Day 2/14/05-A Recap

Valentine's Day: One Year Ago

We were very hyped about the evening that sprawled before us like a glowstick-edged carpet of possibilites. I had obtained VIP guestlist tickets, she bought an new outfit, we both got our haircut, and we had managed to squirrel away some money. We were completely cool. And better yet, we were going to be with someone we loved on Valentine's Day, a first for both of us.

I was so surprised how I got the tickets. I just happened to meander over to my favorite dj's website, www.djdb.com, and I was shocked to discover that he would be playing in ATL on Feb. 14th! But, by my slow-ass meandering, I had missed the tickets. I immediately wrote an e-mail to him describing my total devotion to his music (which was all completely true) and how much I was hoping to see him spin. He wrote me back the same day and we got to e-mailing one another. I told him about letterboxing and he was intrigued. I offered to carve him a stamp for him to keep in a trade for two tickets. He put us on the VIP guestlist. I about crapped in my pants when I read that e-mail. I started carving his stamp that very evening, she went shopping.

The stamp came out good; I chose an album cover design from one of his albums and it was cool. I had to enlarge it a lot so it really was an artistic effort, not just a copy. I stamped it and put the image up on the bathroom mirror in the slum we were living in for hope...every blank morning in that place I saw that design and felt hope.

Hope turned into excitement as the day drew near. That evening we got decked out, sipped a few beers with the roommates, and kicked it downtown. We found the place, left our jackets in the car (like idiots! It was SUPA-cold for ATL...maybe 28 degrees and windy as a fartbag) and scurried to the Mark, which aptly enough, was the spot DJDB chose to play here.

We walked in and were immediately asked for our tickets. We proudly announced to no one, except the bouncer, that we were on the guest list thank you very much. Sure enough, we checked out and got to go on in while the other 3 early arrivers sat in the corner and loomed at us.

She was looking so fine that night, I remember it clearly. Geez, I was in a blissful state of contentment and excitement. We grabbed a beer, walked around the room, and smiled like happy buddhas. I was kind of anxious because I had that stamp I carved for DJDB and I wanted to not only close our trade, but also to meet him.

The room began to quickly fill full of all kinds of folks. It was interesting to see the hardcore fans and all the stripes of lifestyles that DB had connected into. She had to pee by now, and the long line was ridiculous, so I told her I'd hit the bar for our next round while she waited to squat. 10 steps after leaving her there amid the bladder-addled folks, I see a tall, familiar dude walking over to the bar. No one around seemed to take notice of him, but I made a direct line and stepped up and said, "Hey DB, man, it is sooo good to finally meet you!" He was cool, not nonchalent but not overly enthused about a fan coming up in his face. I said, "hey, thanks for getting us on the guestlist." He looked over at me then and I handed him his stamp. His face instantly changed, recognizing who I was-the face meets the e-mail character-and smiled big. He turned the stamp over in his hand and said, "So you had no problems? Good. Great to meet you." I told him briefly of our big V-day outing and asked him if he'd please put in some stuff from the early cuts. He just smiled and said, "just wait...enjoy your date tonight."

It was so very cool that my words now are weakening the experience of that special moment, that stellar evening.

After a few stunned moments I order our next round of brews and go to find her, who is totally POed that she didn't get to meet DB. Tough love.

We find a spot to chill, getting restless for the show to start. The evening is a tagteam between DB and DJ Dara, which means that they take turns but have to connect the song into the last song that was playing when one or the other tagged out. As we lounged on a sofa with some other dudes, who turned out to be very cool, we heard the first notes of Dara's mix emerge from the speakers. I had an epiphany: A Forest by the Cure, slowed down but definitely it. And the musical influx was on...

DJDB emerged on the stage after 2 or 3 songs and changed it into something recognizable to all his followers and I began to float into another place, a position or phase or spot I cannot describe. Life was better than good, it was transcending known levels of pleasure and joy. She disappeared up front to dance and I kicked the steps in the back, studying the beats but relishing them as well.

All good things come to an end. The theme of this tale is not the arguements on the way home or the disaster of the rest of the relationship: those will all be told other ways at other times. This is simply the tale of how I gave my favorite dj a stamp I carved for him on Valentine's Day last year and how he provided entry into one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

Keep spinning DB...a true friend and fan.

I was reading over some old writings of mine and found one that I think represents the beginning of all dark days of my life, the ones which I just narrowly escaped. I find this writing very interesting because it sums up what was about to happen before it ever happened. And now viewing it from beyond the hurt and destruction I see that I subconsciously knew the demise that was about to unfold like scary foreshadowing music in a horror movie.

Rake Hell 11/19/02

Ensanguined heartache dilutes daybreak-splashed hope and begins the dissolution of potential. Imprisonment drudgery and toil: mental anguish at flushed possibilities. Bile and regret coat the cigarette smoke choking my lungs. In my journal, my writing begins '...oh blackest hole, my home of homes...'; wasted words to while away the drunken stint of failure. Lecherous liquor and blackened breathing tissues terrorize my feeble, noncommittal attempts to break this boredom's syrupy lull. Heavy hooded future rescinds behind opaque filters of cataractous ennui. Balancing on slothful inertia, my demise seeps deeply into unintentional companionship and commonality which inflicts accidental damage. Dark wave of ineffectualness blankets all intentions of good. Farewell inspiration, goodbye creativity, au revoir desperate bright hope--all saviors and friends. The end begins...

The Lunch Post

I was the first one there, Curtis was answering a hip page or getting a candygram or something, and I just started nuking the two-day-old lunch. It was too big to eat at one sitting and not have to use the company toilet; I chose to divide and conquer the meal and I was on day two.

Curtis pops up and sits down and opens the olde-school lunch container, a true heirloom of past lunches, and proceeds to munch on a prepared sandwich which looked tasty. I moved into my boomerang of a lunch and stared forward at the tv rolling propo. From across the room came a stretched friend named Dan. Dan was to soon join both Curtis and myself in the midst of our digestion intake.

At our oddly-shaped table, we soon discovered that Dan had apparently mistaken his lunch for a blunt-force-trauma instrument that he mistook for his sub sandwich. Both Curis and I instinctively ducked before we visually sighted overspilling lettuce and then we were cool. We all figured Security had been alerted and was on top of it, no worries, while Dan proceeded to help the "evidence" disappear.

Angela, aka Bling Lunch, then rounded out our foray into the universally recognized act of pausing work for a food-intake upload/conversation to be determined. Her compatible demeanor and delicious-looking grub not only comforted us but also made it look like our tired lunches weren't lame, thanks Ang!

Labor parties, work ethics and implied governmental actions, beer: the scientific formula, white-suited molecules, Japan, blogs and smoking were all mixed into words and conversations between different, but amicable, lunch patrons like a colorful Pollock collage.

Our lunch was fulfilling, thought-provoking, and mostly just a chill way of relaxing.

Thanks for the fun. Happy digestion.

Flat Tire

Stalled, left on the side of motion. I have to decombust the engine, exit my capsule, look at my damage, repair it, and return to the journey. The tire is destroyed; the journey cannot continue as imagined. These necessary repairs snatch me into actuality at the most inopportune moments, but benefit me despite the inconvenience. Don't be discouraged, this tire has served you well. The purpose of this demise shows you how inconstant life can be, how random acts yield areas of growth.

Dirt on my face which is twisting curse words between bitter lips cancels any positivity that might occur. Detrimental seems this product failure and missed is the higher purpose for the pause of secure life. Maybe they are preparation for future tests?

Maybe they are meant to slowly bleed you like harsh words in the soft bed of night, or final passings after the fall...but perhaps you don't fade and finally fold from their inevitable slices. And so where do you go in a car that cannot drive?

I look at the deflated useless tire, still coated with the grime from the miles I've pointed you over, and I see disillusionment. My feelings are selfish; you should have a grand exit. You, beat-ass piece of rubber, have treaded many realms of actions and possibility. My life was carried by your weight and you silently bore the burden. My dirty skin and lopsided limp to safety is not your eulogy because I took you so many different places you would have never seen.

But you, malfunctioning and detrimental, must be replaced for the motion to continue, for the plan to develop and endure. Our moments together of late have been distant, sad, and separated--even mechanical; One must escape from the circular grind before the neglected skin is devoured.

I load you into my trunk, carrying the carcass of your past commitments, and take you into my life as a retired contributor. I must care for the others better than I looked after you. I thank you for the times we rolled together and the bumps endured. You, without suitability, gaze at me and don't understand my care or my appreciation. Flat tire, you have been replaced.

Lately

Lately I've been so out of everything letterboxing-wise. I
don't do shhhhheeeeeeite about the stamps I need to
carve, the boxes I need to maintain, the folks I need
to write.

So, I've been drawing lately. It helps me let out the
bs and focus on something else. Plus it is something I
rarely do.

I come home from work and I open a beer and
I read the funnies in the paper and I mosey through the
house and miss my cat and I sit down at my drafting
table and stare at what I drew the night before. Then
I get up and smoke a cig and finish that beer and grab
another one and go to the table and start drawing.
When I find a stopping point, I grab the beer and
finish that.

Then I turn on the computer and check my
e-mail. Sometimes I never get to the computer part, I
just drink, smoke, and draw. And it keeps me from
being too sad and that, as Martha says, is a good thing.

Sleep is open to interpretations and the sheets seem fearful to me
with their clutched and wrinkled expressions in the morning. I
recall strange images and want to maim and/or destroy the
alarm clock.

And then I wake up to a shower and Marta and work ID
badges and towering buildings and hurried folks,
throngs of them. And I'm one of them. And I like that
a lot.

And then it is elevators and signing in on the
computer and hellos, the coffee scene, grab some new work and
begin. And the next time I register time it is lunch.

And lunch is funny and silly and short and then it is back to
work. And somewhere about 3pm I start to hurt from or
for her and then it is signing out and Marta and a mile walk home
from the beer store and then a beer and then my
drawing...and maybe whispered words in my ear...or
maybe it is the leftovers from my dreams, I cannot tell.
I miss your words.