tainted teriyaki

Mind the gap! Mind the gap!

coming to terms with an adhd mind

dreams so high like kites so tantalizingly real. grounded by a wisp of string so you know it's possible. yet floating adrift with the chance of breaking free and touching space. chase you and i do follow the fluttering fabric in the sky, running about in all different directions not knowing where we might end up. but forever we are bound to the earth. until space stations give us more ground to cover, we must content ourselves with terra firma brown dirt. red soil will have to wait, perhaps for another generation. the hardest working and luckiest of the best and brightest will make towers that stretch to the stars but no matter how great our heights we will never reach the moon, at least for long.

it's not sitting alone in a field looking up and admiring the expanse, marvelling at the minuteness of us and the breadth of everything else. it's realizing that we are big and our actions and achievements are big but not quite big enough.

of course it's worth it to make it at least halfway up the climb to the neptune. so we can admire all that lies below our past. but the future is always up and beyond. time travel never works in scientific realistic minds because of the numbers and correlations the causations and infinite loop of the universe. but to idealistic and romatic minds it's because our whole notion of life would be racked and torn down. what we reach towards is destiny but who really wants to touch the end of the rope who really wants to know there's a finale to it all? it's the unknown that keeps us pushing down doors of the observed. it's the possibility and the chance of redemption it's why we believe in god.

soar too high icarus and he will burn and fall, lie there and burn. but it's the old man who has to live with the guilt or is it guilt? perhaps it is jealousy that wrenches his mind. makes him cry is not regret for son but regret for father. why we fly high when we could just as well have ran through the plains with the gazelles is because we don't like running with the lions and other kings of the jungle. we are beyond the desert and more than the tundra. we wait for another space afixiation so that one day we might chase literally our dreams once again.

earth is boring i want to be a martian and learn to live all over again.

the big tuna

eleven pound bass! eleven pound bass!

swindled at the airport

look what the cat dragged in oh whoops there it goes gone with the wind

the demise of peter rabbit

he thought anything was possible out of the hole he climbed and into the light and cool of morning eager to stretch his legs after being below ground for so long. through the garden he raced his bare feet landing pitter patter on the soft soil damp with dew. he was looking for something for something towards something he raced ears perked but not paying attention really. it was as he rounded the bend and appeared in front of the porch that he was shot.

on the ground he lay and looked at the sky, blue, creased with clouds, and he would die with his eyes open.

she doesn't believe in ghosts

i open the bathroom door open the light and walk in
i fall to my knees and clutch the sink table but still the room spins
step to the toilet stumbling bumbling almost smashing my head
on the piss-stained rim and it's so heavy my brain feels like lead
nothing getting through nothing registering just nothing
flash black to her i'm smiling she's blushing
suddenly my heart leaps out from my throat and splatter
all over my arms and dripping into the bowl of fecal matter
the door's half open and the boom from outside
makes it in all dark here no light i fight
the urge to hiccup another meal
won't take long to heal just another shot to end the pain i feel

fright night

Your breath reeks smells like onions. Hamburger with onions non-grilled just white rings crunchy like lettuce you must have had two. You have a story to tell a wild night at the slots while I was playing the cards eyes on the beautiful dealer money in red and black chips on the table leaning towers falling before I built them back up. You were sitting with the 70 year olds what the hell have you retired from to be doing that yanking that lever like a fool conductor waiting for that money train that's due any minute now. I'm staring at my omelet staring forks and knives into it and gobbling up the remains. But the omelet only lasts so long and I know you can sit there forever so I say fuck it what is it what happened. You smile "you're not gonna believe this bro." Fuck I better not believe it I'm interrupting a good ass omelet here spill the beans. You tell me to hold onto my seat.

click click can you hear me now

fucking garlic fries ruining a perfectly fine meal

bandanas knotted and guns drawn (Ode to Eastwood)

As the windows of summer draw in to a close, the leaves outside begin to catch a glimpse of red and gold on their green tinges.

I see clouds and I wish for rain.

let us hope

that this cheap drink might tonight scorch our throats

blackout

turn life into a game pound circles into the box look for pieces to fit the holes. doesn't matter how much you like the square the triangle the star it won't fit. filter the world into black and white right and wrong yes and no. split yourself in two the only one who can complete you must match every groove and nook and cranny. to mend you two each sinew of your expectation the other must fulfill. external trumps the internal. hours in the gym spent pedalling away going nowhere leads you finally somewhere. left right elbows bent hands one atop another both supporting the head as it hauls towards left knee then right. abs show definition giving meaning at last to the time you invest. this is a true false examination no room no time for your short answers just answer yes or no 50/50 shot at love.

you challenge me i've never been challenged before you fight me i've never lost before and you beat me. maybe you tricked me maybe you were more crafty maybe you were just better tonight. whatever the case i've got black eyed hurt and blue bruised shame and it turns me onto you. you smirk and turn and your skirt whips in the breeze the long dress of flowers waving daisies at me in some twisted humor. your butt laughs shaking its head at me left and right below the small of your back your shirt doesn't cover and your underwear strings poke out and point and tease. i yank up my sports jacket and follow your garden aroma behind.

you turn once and never turn again walking slowly strutting you peacock across the dance floor snaking in and out from the crowds and i run into people i'm not as slippery as you are. you've reached your destination somewhere in the middle of the sweaty gyrating mass of bodies on fire cooled somewhat not enough with sweat and the blare of music that deafens and fuels and moves you. you're with your friends but you're alone, eyes closed in your own milky way, hands in the air and body twisting to the snake charmer those speakers that blast. i stop i stare. the world's stopped and you must have noticed because you open your eyes your murderous green eyes that intoxicate and you smile a little smile just barely turning up the sides of your mouth and you walk my way like an Oasis

disney songs and magic mornings

lions and kings cubs and mane baboons with red heinies. break a coconut and rub it on his forehead circle a pattern of hope in his life and one day he will be king. let's go under the sea and watch the stars from beneath the fluttering glass of water and make wishes from there. speaking crabs with caribbean accents and mermaids who want to walk on land it's a whole different world but not by much. different critters same story but it never gets old even as we age.

call me a tramp my nose grows longer with each wish i misexplain. let's dance before midnight once more let me be your prince charming wake you from this bad dream of yours. ride a horse to a castle in california let your hair down we won't run from the mongols we'll take them head-on. no regrets this life this love we swing through trees cradled in our arms.

i can feel the love especially tonight don't let go i don't think i can find my way back home without you. you are my rock and circle of life and you raise me up to the elephants and giraffes that stomp and roar below.

jeans caught on bike gears

dont make this any harder than it is. its pretty tough already i guarantee you. yes i remember what i said. yes i meant it. but i cant mean it anymore. the faucets run on long enough its time to turn the knob and shut it too much of our lives have drained away i cant keep doing this.

its been the Himalayas. cold climbs and exciting. we've frozen our asses off. the wind and chill's made us delirious. we've fallen off the face of the cliff and landed on a soft bank each time. the next time we won't be so lucky. we've reached the top of the mountain and it ain't all it was cracked up to be. or maybe it was maybe it is. but we can't stay up here all our lives. we're running out of food and water. and air. the atmosphere is suffocating us. payback for all we've put it through.

we've cried enough it's grown hollywood which is what we've always tried to avoid. the music doesn't leave my ears ringing anymore. sometimes i can barely hear it. i can't taste anything but bitter my tongue's grown jaded green eggs and ham smell like shit.

it hasn't grown stale it's just grown too much for the garden we've set. we planned on that and we got this. we're drowning here the walls have no windows we need to break out.

i dont want to say goodbye. its just ive run out of other words to say.

maybe we'll find each other maybe our lines will cross again. or maybe not and we'll run parallel forever me seeing you in some tokyo coffee shop you pretending not to notice. you opening your mouth to call my name out on a london street but changing your mind last second to step into a cab to think it all over.

maybe we'll bend. more likely we're broken.

flash the screaming notes of light

heartbroken and crestfallen the sun retreats behind the cover of the horizon and night reigns once more, for the second time in the past 2 days. the moon peeks in and out of the scattered sheets of clouds every once in a while to watch the rain drop pitter patter on the concrete. the grass catches each speck and the earth beneath soaks in the wet mingled with the bright of the stadium lights and so the ground glows.

the sun's flown to another time zone gone to play on another playground spinning so fast too dizzy to jet lag. here night's fallen but darkness will never saturate entirely. too many night owls perched in high buildings too many deadlines to meet no time for sleep so late night witnesses dreams realized and hopes come apart. bands wrap up their shows 1 am 2 am it's time for the after party all night the sun's still shunned for a couple more hours while we still have some black and purple let's enact beautiful nightmares.

emptiness bound by permanence transient and the potential for closure the hope for a happy ending alive until the night calls it a night let's drive through the empty streets with our radios loud then off then back on again a soundtrack to our insomniac thoughts

tossing roses from thorned grasses

i don't want a thing else/

you speak and ice cream me

i melt in the sun

lips--blow a kiss! and i'm knocked

eyes green/ lashes long a strong storm our way acoming

james dean

tasered me with your touch.

my music my oxygen

LISTEN!

remembering pogs

i want to rewind this tape of time and look for carmen sandiego again. where's waldo gone? captain america your blue skin green hair are missed commodities in white americana. before the real black president there was the smooth sax black president and i miss him as well. pikachu you came a bit later after the rangers of power but i had all your cards it was a swell time we had in all those car rides. with the precursor to nintendo ds gameboy color with like 10 colors. n64 we still kick it at times but the controller's all ancient and sometimes you don't respond you old fart.

remember? before red cups? capri suns and those squeeze tubes was it kool-aid? hi-c? i can't even remember. old computers with big ass monitors. old tvs with the junk in the trunk. oregon trail i miss buying packs of shirts and trousers and grandfather clocks. i think i made it to oregon a couple times back then. not since.

the one

The sweet screech of a thousand or 2, reaching shrill pitch like static lightning in the sky canines hear alone. Hands up back and forth like sand waving wet in the distance.

Sunrise near midnight and he melodies hang with memories in the night air, glass full of last month's hopes shattered by the noise, spilling a pinata's worth of good feelings.

From years past to tonight present and now. Backstreet's back.

as useless as you

every waking moment and even those in between you can't help but entertain

fake accent from the fingertips

minute one fades into minute 2, a miracle of digital display on the upper right corner of the computer screen. 17 to 18 to 19 after 59 the hour changes the numbers repeat. the pm seems the last front in this skirmish against time but soon even this wall falls and am takes its crumbled comrade's position. to keep the soldier company in his lonely battle.

he has a message and all the time in the world in which to word it. no immediate response needed. no eyes glancing upwards, expectant and losing patience. no lungs no mouth no voice to demand "well?!" time to pace it. make it clever. casual. trying so hard not to seem like he's trying so hard. time to perfect. time to ruin.

no remorse. he had all the time in the world in which to word it. instead he comes up with this clever but not clear enough. she smiles but it's ambiguous so she frowns. now she's uncertain and an uncertain anne is an unhappy anne. his letter made her unhappy.

and he had all the time in the world.

california i will never be able to call you home

your clouds linger not long enough
so dark will never find home beneath
where the sounds of a thousands voices
spread thin through miles
your blue runs too deep
do you have no hues of gray?
i have no quarrel with the quakes or with the fires
but the disaster of cheerful optimism allowed set free
pigeons unleashed in the great outdoors
a scene of nature too much for my senses
California in doses I do enjoy you
but i can never drop to bended knee
no proposals expect none from me
because i love rain and you will never rain enough for me.

break me up

you made a promise yes you miss standing there on the escalator carried with me to a common destination brief though our tenure there lasted. you said you'd call you took my number and stole my heart and i never received a vibrate my way from you. you hung a left you wanted some lingerie you said i swung right i needed a cold shower.

i walked past the ice cream shop and i looked back. you kept walking so i kept walking and at the door of the j crew i chanced a glance once more and your eyes met mine and i said fuck me and a little girl stared at me while her mother glared. so i left.

i waited for a call that never came like a girl in 10th grade waiting for her romeo. so i said fuck this and this time there were no little girls and their mothers so the keys and i drove to the bar.

i said hi rob he said you again i looked up he was smiling rob is good people. the air smelled like alcohol of course and mixed with the smoke of cigarette dying into the black of the plentiful dark offered here it made for a beautiful concoction. but i opted for the vodka and tonic.

the stool patiently bore the weight of my sorrows and i punished my liver for life's unfair. one glass two glass i had a little empire building but rob the empire destroyer said no more for you kid. so i sighed and tipped the good man and turned to leave and there you were. lover of mink you pretentious woman you smiled at me mr. speechless wondering if maybe rob was right and maybe i did have one drink too many and was imagining things.

at the coffee shop you silly woman told me wrapped in comfort pillows and sheets so soft and warm in the cool we want the magic from our dreams to lie in our days and i said fuck me.

black stiletto boots it's you i love not the woman who wears you.

in the sanctuary of my own mind

somewhere out there the pavement breaks down into pebbles before crumbling into dust, and that's where i'd like to be. an inverse world where there's no ocean by the beach. a perverse world where we fear the approach of a breeze because it means only more sand in our eyes. we might lay out our towels but the umbrella we stick in the ground keeps wavering and falling and our lotion coat keeps melting and we're so sick of the sweat on our backs that we turn and accidentally land on the sand and now it's a thousand little burning needles pricking our backs in an act of unwanted acupuncture. we who so longed for that glistening hollywood tan now can't bear the crisp burnt appendages we call arms. we want shade and we want buildings we want suburban air conditioned rooms ceilinged from the sun we've grown to loathe. nature at its worst. we hate camels.

these are the dreams

that turn the ignition within our hearts, giving us the drive we need to take to the road. There's horsepower in our minds and given the right coordination of the pistons that are the components of our body--body and soul--then we just might be able to get to that destination on our individual routes in life.

and something about a light that never goes out

there will come a day

when these hurts we nurse the falls we take will seem small potato. Given a week only an urgent poke to the bruise remaining will remind us of the moaning and bitching we so adeptly delivered. Given a month the miracle of the body will have erased all signs of disruption and we'll deny ever having bitched and moaned at all.

when these hurts we nurse the broken heart will seem just cracked or barely chipped. Rip and tear those letters pictures up and apart. Let those burnt cds smolder in the trash heap, on the way to the garbage bin, en route to the disposal truck, to whichever local or faraway dump it will lay rotting away with the brown and graying dreams of other happily ever afters. You might never forget the face the voice the wisp of hair that forever fell across her cheek, though she always brushed it aside it always stubbornly found its way back. The sudden abrupt earth-shattering breakup or the gradual drift apart may remain etched forever, sewn by the two of you on the heart that used to pause and skip beats when you were together. But there will be another. Long after we've exhausted all the oil wells, lopped off the all the heads of trees, sootened all the blue skies on earth, cupid will float on, shooting hearts and breaking minds. There will be another.

when these hurts we nurse the slights that weigh us will seem light as a bulb. he teased you she accused you they egged you on. children can be the cruellest little cretins but the snakes they wriggle your way comes from brutal honesty. we have a world of backhanded compliments and beneath-the-table kicks, under-the-belt jabs towards which to look forward. a constellation actually, where people are planets and everyone thinks it's he she it that the sun revolves around. where we have little grovellers, moons reflecting our self-perceived brightness, proffering themselves for us to conquer and declare ours. it's a complicated world where sometimes you don't realize what's supposed to hurt and what's supposed comfort until it's too late and we're in a two-faced schizo world of paranoia.

for those days of being called booger brains we long and mourn.

let the lights hit the sky

sometimes the punch just takes your breath away

metallic whines from the turn of gears

Run away artist from clarity in your work. Definition limits and binds. Promising instruction--look! precedence! influence! make their work your own! follow these guidelines grow into the mold and eventually break free!--the snake with the apple checkered with connect-a-dot spots. No good sir your muse is within. Kind madam take a look outside and let what's inside come out and mesh with what's beyond and let the thoughts clash with the senses. No definition perhaps precedent after all what's new these days but if you repeat it's subconscious no plagiarism just patriotism faith in the lovely nation and notion of imagination. Let history's artists leave their thumbprints on your heart and mind but the actual molding of the play-dough world you create comes from influence personal and individual.

Learn and tip a hat to the past but dress up for the present. Let your hands today draw a path to tomorrow. Believe in the nature of things that all will in the end right itself.

violin strings wailing soft music in the distance

Odes to liquor:

where have all the good times gone? memories made and not retained, moments cherished for the moment. never made me sick, not the night of, not the morning after, no you didn't. regret and periodic blush sure. but you've never sickened me. you and your ways.

you make me want to go to bed but i never could. for some reason you've always kept me up. made me honest made me a stranger in my own self. dialed up the volume you have toned down the noise you've done also. you've made me cry you've made me laugh. i've danced and i've crashed. out black out back doubt back where's the route back.

you bewilder me. you fool me. you drive me. you are the cousin of death. or liver failure at the least. liver not the organ but the person amidst the action of living. you're a bastard. we can be bastards together.

hey there pretty stranger. you have no idea how much i've missed you.

(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pacdog/149923250/)

she reckons she holds

tumble and stumble eat and drink and be merry

hospital stay

stitches unravel and the wound still oozes not yet healed maybe perhaps never. then scar.

A mind can sometimes needle and thread itself back after it's been torn. It'll take the frayed ends and carefully, painstakingly, reconcile one fabric brother to its separated kin of the cloth. Disappointment can tear. Failure can tear. Betrayal can tear. A strong (or lucky) mind can mend.

Sometimes it's new, the reconstructed consciousness. New lessons sometimes find their way into the patchwork stitched. Bound a certain way, it can no longer unravel this 1 way. Life and circumstance will have to find another angle to initiate its rip through ours.

They can be tight, these new bonds, or they can be loose. Prone to separation. The gentle, curious, pseudo-masochistic tug at the loose end. Can topple the delicate house of cards. Made of cloth. Soft.

Doused in fear, rinsed in doubt, set aflame by the taunting flame of provocation, minds preternaturally prey to psychotic psychoanalyzing predators.

The wolves sometimes prowl in one's own mind, in shadows, waiting for common sense to falter. Then they pounce. Reason bitten into/deep/pain and jerked into bits tattered. Rational thought active becomes deranged defensive. The world so wide closes in. The doors shut. The windows shutter. The heart shudders. It can only watch and beat on, a little quicker, to send out some warning, to anyone who will listen but no one is listening it's all in you head remember? it's all inside WHAT ARE YOU THINKING. no exclamation point. just calm mania.

Tssst... cold rag your scorched senses... Wake in a room padded with patchwork white. Suited in white and bound with broad white ropes. It's tape but it's ropes. They strap your arms when you want them to strap your neck and give you just enough length. To kick the chair out from under to see stars to smell ether to feel burn temporary before eternal. To live once before death.

Spend your sense on product worth the currency.

by the carton

intolerance is intolerable. not the least of which is that of lactose.

mood music

When it hits you, that something that sweeps through you, blowing out the want to procrastinate, brushing aside the scared and nervous and timid, you transform. The crowd's screaming and butterflies are smothering your heart and it's hard to breathe but that natural Monster erupts, bubbling over -- nature's Red Bull -- your adrenaline swelling through your veins that feel like their about to burst/from excitement/from pressure that pushes you up (to the surface) and ... you are delivering the gospel from heaven creative to earth the crowd the first-timers the old veterans the fans young and old. Excitement blurs the eyes but it's not tears it's passion and you blink and all you see is lights and it blows your mind but still you stand. and deliver. It possesses you/you're the one moving but it's the night that's carrying you. It's your voice but the people singing the song. The stage trembles from the bang of the bass of the speakers but it feels like it's you/your stomp your stride across the stage sends tremors through the house it feels like the world is shaking. And it's you. It's you.

i wanna hold your hand

Dear dream,
It's 5 o'clock in the morning

Where are you?

Insomnia, you

you complete me

when the wind blows problems and whispers rumors all around and in between, you are always there to quiet the world

walk the plank

every day there are little missions for you to complete. small things. like orange juice or milk, french toast or cereal. big things. like whether to stop and let the squirrel scurry past or keep going and let him stick pasted to the pavement. things that seem small but are actually quite large. like waking up in the morning.

you always have a choice. let lazy lie you down to nap or muster up that drive from somewhere deep within. usually one's easy while the other one's not. and usually we follow the yellow brick road, even though there are colorful fields of flowers and bright blue and white skies off the beaten path. because there might be thorns we think. because there might be storms abrewing just over the horizon, because there might be poison mushrooms between the dandelions, because mosquitoes like to lurk near pretty peaceful lakes. so even though the road is long and drab and the yellow gets monotonous soon we walk on me you and dorothy and the tin man and the scarecrow and the lion. we're all looking for something and hope that the road we walk on takes us there. we walk on in hope. we walk and we hope.

padded walls and taped to chairs

When you're brain senses something's wrong your whole body knows it. Once those sense receptors patrolling your skin cells pick up an upset on their radar -- a chill in the wind, a prick of a needle, shit common or radioactive -- those little rascals heave pedal to medal, racing through blood stream and nerves to command central at the brain and start snitching. Hammer to the knee and the foot kicks. Hammer to the chest and the breath heaves. Hammer to the head enough times and the body knows well enough to die. As long as your senses are in proper order nature can't get away with anything. Nature acts and the brain knows. The brain's big brother man no keeping nothing from him.

Senses in improper order, though, that's another story. Rub a little of that magic ointment before you stick that needle in you don't feel a thing. Doesn't matter how fat that sticker is. Smoke a bit of this drink a bit of that man nature can sock you in the gut the face and defecate in your ear and the only way you know is the next morning when you got some bruises and some shit stinking up dripping down the side of your face.

When I got the teeth removed I was like pssh painkiller whatever do I look like Jack Shepherd Mr. Oxycodone no sir I can beat this by my lonesome just hand me the ice pack and the pillows baby I'll sleep this sucker off.

Nature's big brother baby no keeping nothing from him. I kept waking up in the middle of the night the afternoon the morning jaw aching brain pounding and the prescription just kept getting better looking. No beer goggles on but this girl's getting cuter by the minute and daddy's not thinking straight. Drunk of pain not Coor's. So I sidled up to little miss orange tube top, freed her from that stifling white bra, and daddy went to work.

I woke up the next morning and for once I was glad to see her still in bed with me, curled up, little miss pills. I whispered in her ear honey you set me free. The hurt you make it leave. Sometimes you make me sick but as long as I eat first we're good. You're so pretty you. Before you I couldn't sleep at night. I couldn't speak I'd be mad all the time. Before you nights and mornings and afternoons it was all headaches. Now the days are still blurry but at least it feels good.

Baby you got me hooked.

look at me! look at me!

One time? I had a coloring book? And there was this guy? And I didn't have peach color? So I colored him purple!

There were a bunch of lines on the page, just straight, bland, boring lines, just lying there on the page. I bent them and curved them and turned them into a maze.

if you want to leave

if that's the way you feel. if what we had was memories and if those mean nothing to you. if walks were just feet in motion if talks were just mouths and lips moving. if nights were just the time before day. if the smiles and laughs the frowns and screams the go away i never want to see you again come back i can't live without you if they were just words we echoed from movies and not from our hearts then leave.

pack your bags and leave. but know that i can't stay either. the walls we painted ourselves remember the puke green we splashed yellow over laughing as we wondered what the last owners were thinking painting a living room such a rotten color. the furniture we spent weeks picking out me wanting to tell you to hurry up but not saying anything because i knew how much it meant to you. at the end you convinced me that it was worth it all those hours from ikea to linen n things to bed bath n beyond back to ikea comparing prices online almost buying it from that one site before we found another with free shipping. it was worth it you said and i believed because this is our future if we're going to get chairs and tables and desks and dressers we need them to be perfect not just enough for today but enough for tomorrow. you said and i believed.

sweep our pictures from the dresser to the ground let the moments shatter with the glass. tear them from the wall strip them naked after all the months we spent dressing them together me hanging a picture you yelling at me its not straight over and over finally you say perfect then i sit back down with you on the bed to admire a crooked picture just kidding you said you had it perfect the first time. and i laughed and you laughed and we kissed and we left the picture like that.

break the mirror we spent every morning in front of brushing our teeth you combing your hair me shaving my beard smash the television i spent so long convincing you was worth buying throw the video games you hate so much against the wall.

break it smash it throw it all away.

and leave with me.

it doesnt feel good

The wisdom teeth came out this morning. All four of those little rascals, the two poking out just a little bit up top, glimpses of white amid pink, and the two below, growing sideways, content to push forever beneath the surface, nudging at the teeth ahead.

Times like these kind of wish I was the cutting type, someone derives pleasure from pain, maniacally masochistic to the point where I would shun the ice and painkillers, welcome the retching and inability to eat anything not put through the blender. Then it'd be great fun, having to prop my head up with two pillows -- which I've abhorred always -- every time I lie down. It'd be a regular party clenching tea bags in my jaw, feeling my head pound in rhythm along with my head. The trips to the toilet, sitting, hoping that I wouldn't be forced to place my elbows where my ass had just been, unleashing fury from both ends of the body, top and bottom a broken pipe.

Unfortunately the only times I cut myself is when shaving, contemplate pills only when the nose is runny, and I have no use for ropes or nooses, preferring to hang out rather than hang from rafters. I really like this life, you see, obstacles, hardships and all.

Since work started I've actually enjoyed waking up early, the motivation stemming from having a purpose at last, reason to get up and go. So though I can't find much reason to smile from rapidly swelling cheeks and gum, I can find reason to go through it. Life gives you lemons and though sour and useless they may seem at first, with a little craft and creativity, it has the potential to turn sweet, as long as you give it the chance.

I can feel vividly the pain and pangs pulsing through my jaws but I can also remember the discomfort I felt earlier, months ago, when they were just teething, those top teeth. The bottom ones hadn't affected me much but my uncle's just had his removed, at age 50 something, tired of all the cavities they've been causing. Sometimes you have to submit yourself to hurt today for the sake of a safe and healthy tomorrow. The same way it is with working out, studying, practicing in anything, life, love...

For some reason that strikes me as beautiful and -- at least for a little bit -- dulls the hurt, makes it a little more bearable, this and everything else that pains.

leap of faith

The sun has pushed through the clouds, which have fled, like squirrels disrupted, away from the sudden, surprising renewal of fierce and focused heat. The shadows that lay spread across the field's wide expanse crouch now, crowded and cowering, in the corner. Color bleeds slowly back into the ground; texture and definition now make clear what the dark had muddled. Man arises from his slumber; morning has come -- if not literally, then figuratively, and it means just the same. He looks up, blinks and squints. He stretches out, feeling life spring forth through his limbs. The breakthrough of light through dark, the triumph of sharp white rays over clustered gray molecules hits him like coffee, but without the caffeine drop.

His eyes take a second to adjust, the little lenses both natural and man-made shifting in and out of focus, gears adjusting to fine-tune sight. The smell of nature, unlike the stale scent of office, unlike the perfumes and fast-food fumes of mall, unlike the homely smell of the house, fills and expands through his lungs and strikes his blood like a cold hammer, sending off frigid sparks of excitement through his veins. The warmth bathes his skin and the breeze whips his shirt and pants about his bare skin. Hot and cold, nowhere in the middle, just extremes, driving forth a body that hopes this time to keep up with the mind. His legs long to run, to sprint, through the grass, a part of nature and a piece of the world at last.

He has awoken.

there's a candy in front of my nose and i'm chasing it

Lazy metaphors, Agh! What are they good for?

What is this thing? This movement was started without a manifesto and what started with such gusto! spasmodic enthusiasm! is splitting into a thousand different directions and it's hard to tell which one makes sense and which one doesn't. Diary type deals check. Musings check. Takes on music and movies check. Wannabe Sedaris entries check. Coherence no check. Direction no check. I suppose it might be artsy and ironic for the hallmark here to be random, sporadic, attention-deficit-disordered entries about anything that comes to mind, but it'd be helplessly optimistic to expect an audience to put up with the far flung disparate thoughts that cross the crosshairs of my herky jerky mind. A direction is sought Captain Jack Sparrow demands a compass that points north where are you Keira Knightley to be my muse?

repetition is the mother of learning

I had a teacher once I think he taught Latin and he said repetition is the mother of learning. The only way you learn something he said is to do it over and over and over.

Olympians on Mount Olympus.

The achievements of athletes could cover the Great Wall's length with the multicolored stain of dedication and perseverance.

Swing it right and swing again. Then you just might have a shot.

crooked guy

I saw him at the corner of 5 and Elm's, the crooked guy. Typical crooked guy attire. His trench coat, brown and full of pockets, wrapped around him, the khaki mummy. My dashboard reads 94 degrees but no sweat marks on this fella, no sir, just standing around for this crooked guy, peering around from under his brown rimmed hat. Or maybe no peering, maybe just staring straight ahead. I couldn't really tell. You see, the sun was beating down on this guy's hat, so for about a couple inches, from hat to around midway down the nose, just shadows. But he was looking around. I know this because his head turned every once in a while. I couldn't really see his neck that well because he had his collar turned up and all, but I could tell he was moving his head about because his hat kept rotating, sometimes clockwise, sometimes counter.

He looked really awkward, honestly, it being summer and bright and sunny all, and him just standing there in his big old trench coat and big old hat. I suppose that hat was OK, a little too 50s mob attire for my taste, but the sun was out, and you can't blame a guy for wearing a hat. But all the standing and looking around, and in that goddamn trench coat. Free country we live in, I know, but it was just damn weird, to tell you the truth.

I wondered how long he'd just stand there, at the corner of 5 and Elm's, with traffic coming and going all around -- it's a busy intersection, you see (there's a lot of malls and such all around). He didn't really look much like the criminal type, just loitering about in broad daylight the way he was, but maybe he was just a lousy criminal. Should have spent more time reading the manual I suppose. Or maybe he was undercover, like a cop or some special unit or something. Most likely not, though. I don't know how they do things over at the academy, but I'm pretty sure they know trench coat guy in 94 degree midday heat is kind of bound to stand out.

So I was thinking maybe he's just some crazy person, one of the eccentrics. Or a protester. Maybe he's protesting global warming. Or stores having sales on hot and heavy clothes like trench coats during the summer, when nobody wants to wear them. I sort of felt a bond right then, at that moment. I don't like waiting a whole season to buy something I'm not going to be able to wear for another couple months either. I began nodding and thinking about all the other kinds of other stuff I'd like to protest, but then the guy behind me honked his horn and leaned out his window and said something about my mom, which I didn't appreciate, but it was 94 degrees and I didn't feel like sticking my head out the window because that would let all my air conditioning out, and it took 15 minutes for me to get the exact temperature I wanted. So I honked at the guy and when he looked up, I gave him a thumbs up. I wasn't sure if he was American or not, whether he could speak English or whether he spoke Russian or something, but I'm pretty sure the thumbs up sign means "good for you!" in both English and Russian. As I mused for a bit over how other things translate from one culture to another, trench coat guy gave me the finger.

The guy behind me honked again.

or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain

To the topic at hand. Before losing control at the wheel, I planned to use the Carter as a comparison but my hands greased and the wheel in front slipped while the wheels beneath slid but I've tightened the grip and the machine once again obeys, for how long I can't say but for now while the clutch feels willing I'll take the road a time more.

Visually the movie tears your eyes out and soaks them in torrential cityscape and the shock of fiery skyscraping lights clashing with cold, cold dark night runs a sensation quick and brisk up your retinas into your brain and through your body's rest. Explosions or calm the city envelops. When buildings burst you feel the city lurch as a sentient thing. Before and after the silence cannot cover the breathing the heart of the city that beats and pulses, pulsates and vibrates, the blood behind the life of the film.

What you hear -- dialogue that resonates/from Bale and Eckhart even Freeman and Caine cliches don't clatter to the floor/instead the deliveries give old truisms new pace and relevance and the audience responds in turn. What you hear -- explosions and shots and shouts and screams that fit within the scope and time and place/nothing extraneous nothing overdone or overwrought/indeed silence reigns at time the score -- exquisitely rendered -- stands alone, carrying heavy moments alone, Atlas with Gotham City comfortably between his shoulders.

Bale Eckhard Freeman Caine. Ledger. The much-anticipated, hyped, talked-about, acclaimed, all those and similar and not-so-similar remarks on the performance of the late Heath Ledger. I'm almost afraid to comment when someone dies there's so many emotions and thoughts and perceptions and perspectives that surround (not necessarily cloud, mind you, but simply surround in a neutral, inevitable sense) and I'm no different. They gave me the stick to bite down upon while the Ledger off and does his thing on the screen and I'm still biting. In a case like this it might be difficult to separate the two when someone dies that tragedy whether you've seen it firsthand or second or third or whether you've merely heard about it whether you like or love or hate or don't even know the deceased and dead and passed on and along you feel a sort of pang not pain or hurt maybe not even sympathy but just something. If it's a hero, Jesus, weep. If it's a villain you can't help but feel for him... Right?

For me, wrong. Wrong wrong wrong! Do I feel for him Heath guilty guilty guilty as charged! Might my opinion be unfairly biased towards support? Of course of course there can be no other way. But the Joker? He spooked me but he prompted admiration completely disparate and disassociated with the Ledger all that aura of death and departure. It's the acting it's the craft it's the art Heath Ledger as the Joker was (is!) an artist. The mannerisms the twitches and tongue-laps the voice the grating drawl the teeth-bared hyena laugh of the insane and wrapped and bundled in padded white walls he mastered. Perhaps Depp could have done it perhaps Pitt did it once before perhaps Nicholson (Nicholson!) but here that's all irrelevant. Because here is Ledger. Not actors great of past and present. But Ledger, Heath.

And grant me a 180 degree turn on this wild and unpredictable ride. Because it cannot be avoided. It was more than the acting more than the forms and faces you learn in classes and through experience. Because here Heath commanded our utmost attention at every scene. Screen presence what they I don't know who but someone calls it screen presence. And maybe an actor doesn't have to have died to wield it with such abandon -- obviously Ledger was alive during the filming so why can't I just attribute his magnetism to his acting abilities or his charm or charisma? Because he died. There's no running from that, there's no way around it. Much as you'd like (or not) to hide it, beneath the covers shoved in the corner behind the dresser under the rug, it's there. You can't judge his performance alone because you're given more than just the facts, more than just time and action on film, you're given the emotions that surround them, the press release the accolades from co-workers and despair and wails from family friends and fans. You don't know though you wish you did whether you can't turn away because he died or because he's just so damn good did he have it all along no did he turn it up in this one maybe maybe but I just don't know I just can't tell I don't know I don't damn know.

The case whatever it is whatever because he does what superstars can't some can carry films promote and sell them open at 250 300 million! but when they're onscreen they're so bright everyone and thing else shrivels up and dies. [Insert basketball analogy: Good player = leads team in scoring does not equal Great player = makes team better] Ledger it's all eyes on him but he doesn't steal the screen he's something else not a screen stealer too old to be an attention hog too beyond to be selfish self-absorbed he's beyond charismatic at this point he's myth but the legend allows room and Bale and Eckhart as well are heard and seen and felt.

You feel. Heath the crashes the burns the fires the blowing up and blowing out the fights the city the lights Ledger Ledger Ledger makes you feel.

I stumbled through the dark of the theater out into the bright of glaring shopping mall lights with all its clutter and clatter of people some just eating lunch or dinner or coffee or biscuits or something, some eagerly waiting to see what I've just seen. No producers no directors no actors or actresses told me what to take from that film. I took I what I saw and felt and heard and witnessed. Like Michelangelo's like Mozart Moliere Machiavelli Monet's, from beautiful art and craft and work here I took what I could from it/beauty. and Ledger.

Perhaps he she I or you them they those people can find lesson something applicable but it's nothing we haven't heard or seen or been told. Difference is we've never heard seen or been told it like this. and Ledger.

you either die a hero

Unbelievable. Lil Wayne scrambled up the white rungs of his fire engine and screamed, his voice carrying above the wails of the careening truck, announcing himself best rapper alive to an audience that, for some reason or another, listened. To him, of all people, they payed attention and bought the hype. More the bought they sold and traded Weezy F Baby became the hottest stock on the market, bear running 2 years straight without evidence of slowing. He clung on for dear life as his ride whipped him about through one drought after another, and when a faucet leaked he said fuck it and snapped the entire drain open. "Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?" And we screamed for him our 21st century dreadlocked Spaniard.

Carter III was supposed to make it worth our time prove that we had not worshiped in vain. The legacy all the hype all the potential all the brilliance that flashed once or twice in the pan would gleam constant and throughout. There would be no dirt on this diamond it would be flawless.

The day came the week ended and despite delay and bootleg the aura smothered all; from the smoke arose 1 million not since 2005 had the Romans turned out in such droves, not just downloading and listening -- though millions more of course did -- but going out and purchasing. The myth cemented no longer legend but statue of gold and green Lil Wayne made good on his promise. He had become the greatest rapper of all time. Flow -- we've heard syllables twisted and bent more beautifully. Lyrics -- we've heard thoughts that wrung heart and molded mind more forcefully. Beats -- we've rocked our heads harder than this. But a rapper -- not lyricist, not poet or artist mind you -- is an entertainer, a performer, in other words a glorified peddler of some good or craft. He sold and goddamn it we bought.

Was it genius? Was it epic? Was it that sought after much talked about 'classic'? Those months of myth-building didn't prepare us for this for sure. Gone are the lines that punch so hard you gasp for a second then turn to your friend 'Did he just say that?' Absent the similes and metaphors that brushstroked 3-D scenes that reeked and stung, deafened and blinded. Lost, the carefree I-don't-give-a-damn, I-rap-you-listen and in its place something wrought by codeine and hash, a Picasso when we expected a Rembrandt.

He sold. We bought.

beached ambition

Do we play the music or let it play us?

Master the formula the perfect concoction of pop sensibilities and artistic maintenance and boom! Gold platinum then multi! Multi multi multi millionaires everyone involved money for everyone!


A new dawn a new age musically hopefully where filler exists no longer where artists are not necessarily irrelevant but certainly beneath the music they craft. No more publicity no more hype no more superstars supernova flame fame burning the music rendering it subordinate. No--music will rise, above it all, the beat and staccato the rhythm and rhymes will dot and star the skies... above the artist the producer the politics and economics, the music will rise and with it the listener will launch free at last, into space and beyond.

brow damp underarms drenched

And I wonder:

Do people still use chalkboards? I'm old enough to remember black and grey and green dusty boards never quite clear of yesterday or the last class's notes but young enough to have had the wonderful duty of wiping clear the markerboard with those furry little rectangles that magically erased an hour's worth of notes with a second's fell swoop of a swipe. Then came projectors first those printed slides that always took Mr. Scott minutes to straighten perfectly which he continued to do even after most of the rest of the class--so tired of the fiddling that they were willing to start class a few minutes earlier just so he'd stop--moaned it's fine Mr. Scott it's fine. I think he had OCD too.

Now everything comes from the computer, professors clicking from one slide to the next, lecture halls devoid of the familiar scratch of chalk on the board. Sure no one complains 'Ms. Jackson I can't read that word on the end' 'Which one?' 'The one right after In 1992 the United States that one' 'Oh I see. It's supposed to be 'Cuban Missile Crisis'... wait. Cuban... Mission... Christ, Sam do you remember what that is?' Sam squinted for a bit craned his head a little bit this way unsquinted then squinted again before finally raising his hands in defeat.

We never figured it out it wasn't Cuban Missile Crisis we didn't bring that up once in our million tangential routes but for the life of us we couldn't not even the kids who took notes I suppose they were too shy at the time and didn't raise their hands to ask and by this time it was too late.

No more "Christ, Sam do you remember what that is' is efficient I suppose, but its a bit sad as well, for me for you for us who remember and for those who don't, tomorrow's classroom children, typing away never knowing what they've missed.

smoking in the can (gin in the spam)

orange and white of cones

then Moses! the cars disperse

unraveling patchwork

each running its own way,

Where are we going? Home.

Ignition off keys out door open step out door shut jingle the keys beep car's locked right foot in front left foot follows left foot in front right foot follows through the sliding doors welcome to another day.

over the hills and through the woods to grandmother's house we go

Work this fine day took me to the nursing home, what I used to call the old folks' home, what I now call the brave hearts' home.

I parked in an open spot there we dozens of them. Monday morning not many visitors even though it's summertime. It's a beautiful building if its residents were young 20 somethings it'd be called a condo and a nice one at that. Red bricks showering down the tall walls' sides, long glossy windows mimicking the slow soft blue and white dance of the clouds above, the entrance pillars supporting a grainy stately flat umbrella of concrete, like those of fancy city hotels. If only its residents were younger more nimble more active the parking lot wouldn't be so empty.

And so, walking in, it takes a minute to readjust. No sparkling indoor pool no gyms no treadmills no sign of active life. No bright and friendly staff decked out in sharp and pressed suits rush to welcome you in. Instead the tired worn bored looking middle-aged sorry-to-be-here type stares at you, suspiciously almost, what's a young man like yourself doing in a place like this, she'd like to know yes she'd like to know.

You tell her no, you're not here for directions, this is the place to which you meant to come you smile you nod outwardly earnest inwardly close exasperated when she stares at you still, suspicious, always suspicious.

Finally finally it's time to see to speak with to meet at last with the residents, the old the wise who possess experience and everything that comes with it.

History and lots of it all you have to do is ask. To unlock the mysteries to open the chambers of secrets to see through this window that is another person to the other side, which lies sometime 20 30 40 50 years ago, to a time long gone but still vivid, though less so, rapidly diminishing, in the old man old woman's mind and thoughts.

Here is a woman who served and returned court on the grasses Wimbledon and won. And won and won. Three time champion. What's she doing in a wheelchair?

There is a veteran who fought in, heard and saw, smelled and tasted Vietnam. He doesn't ask even when you bring it up but you can see it in his eyes 'how could they forget how could they forget'... Vietnam.

There is a man who never served wasn't even a protester just ambivalent at the time. Didn't wear camo green black and brown didn't wear beads either no long hair no bell-bottoms no headbands for him no sir wasn't my type of thing. You want to ask well what was your thing then but you don't you can't it would be rude and you realize as these doubts creep through your mind that hey, where are my army boots where are protest posters and you realize...

So you move on you meet fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers one great great grandfather but no great great great's. Too many great's is silly anyhow. You listen to them, speak with not just about them no more jokes about old drivers old grouches 'back in my day I walked ten miles just to go to school'...

They all had dreams as well, just as we now do. They had high hopes and aspirations, some had the right mixture of talent dedication patience circumstance and luck to make it work, some didn't. For some day-to-day life was enough of a struggle no time no opportunity to dream except at night. But all of them war vets housewives shower singers and stage performers armchair quarterbacks and San Francisco 49ers quarterbacks they all live still for how long I we they don't know, don't know if they quite want to know, but they all live still.

I wonder. Whether I could do that. In a room a building where nothing but old age and children with some motive or another bringing them together. I suppose that's the way with everything. A liberal arts college might draw students with same pursuits and interests but they come from all different backgrounds the students. A local rec team might share the same zip code area code and love for basketball softball or whatever but jobs and ethnicity and all that might differ. But can age be compared to an interest? Just because 2 people have spent 80 90 years on this Earth doesn't mean they have anything more to say to each other than a man in his 20s and a man in his 40s. Age aside, you're really alone sure you might find someone who by some miracle of statistics and situation went to the same high school or loves the same city or team or singer but most of them at the one's I've seen just do their own thing.

And it's day after day after day. Their last years in this world. No bucket lists being sloshed about just a sad and kind of scary resignation. Some of course put on a happy smile but others they sulk they're crabby it's downright depressing. The things they say whether it's their own words or some hint from their body language convey the feeling that they believe they've done what they were meant to do. The world fate God something or someone has written their life it's a play and they're long past the 3rd act the climax and it's all downhill and denouement from here.

To live to live still to continue on when you know that everything exciting is in the past that nothing lies ahead except more of the same the same and then the end--maybe it's comforting relaxing in a way but to me it's a frightening prospect. And so to them to you residents of the nursing home I salute you I may not understand support or believe in your ways but it takes courage or something damn like it to smile at me fresh blood in the house of stale and truck on.

On and on we drive until the end our end wherever it may lie some are closer some have a ways to go but we just don't know we just don't know.

you are now free to move about the cabin

I'm left with a field full of moles, and my garden's no good for nothing no more.


We can play our days in peaceful repeat of yesterday's events, just changing the dates on the newspapers, exchanging one disaster for another, wars hunger disease more war hate crimes discrimination racism inequality more war anarchy totalitarianism shooting mugging killing hazing more war more war more war until

...what exactly is it all building towards, if anything? Is a second's glimpse of hope love and beauty enough to make it worth seeing hearing living through the hours' weeks' months' years' and centuries' worth(?) of hurt hurt and more hurt?

History repeats itself they tell me they tell everyone. They mean it as instructional, it should be comforting that we have a past example something we can relate to what seems indecipherable today. But it's sad, isn't it, because the entire notion of it all that history is a cycle circling back again every some odd years, that whole premise hangs on the ugly fact that we don't learn from our lessons, that we do the things we do that hurt that set us back because we neglect. So it's not karma, neither fate nor destiny, but simply us taking the knife to our bare legs and cutting. Cutting. Cutting.

And it hurts!

salmon pancakes

Perhaps, perhaps.

careful what you wish for

To summer days, warm, bright and humid, filled with books read and to be read, outside, inside, movies played on the laptop and on the new flat-screen, to the search for things to be done. To potential broken by inaction. To laziness broken by ambition. To the moments you spent dreaming, drifting through the days, dazed. What seemed like boredom, then, appears now, as something else altogether.

cake in my eyes and sleep in my throat

Most days I wake and

I just can't seem to summon the pep to match the brightness of the day.

hope and batteries in need of recharge

I don't want to be unemployed, there's joy

in a business suit, but me, I just finished my freshman year of college
Landing back down from Mars,

I typed up a nice little resume, scoured the classifieds, I sent them in, and kept my phone on and nearby.

One week, two weeks, three weeks later. No calls back, no call backs. The phone's still on and nearby, but the batteries dying.