true barren destitution, suckling at the dusty remnants of a dried river bed, divining rod extended at the crotch...
arid desert breaths, emitting puffs of dust from cracked and flaking lips, smacking tongue, dry heaving drops of acrid bile up into the back of the throat and a little bit even onto the taste buds.
show me a glass of water. just show it to my face long enough only for my eyes to signal to my brain that it is water. "is this what you are looking for, sir?"
but. despite it being precisely what i need, i'll not be sure how to answer. and so i'll equivocate until you line me up against a wall and pulverize me with a fire hose.
09 December 2013
Giraffes and Gazelles
So he put his hands down between his knees, shrugged his shoulders and smiled. The smile was a big one. An understanding one. It was unclear to him how it had happened to him. But it had.
His one boy was eating animal crackers two fistfuls at a time, reaching both hands into the bag and coming out with giraffes and gazelles between his fingers. The kid's personality and charisma were indescribable. He was untouchable.
His other boy had the smile and face of his father's. And a head full of mischief, despite his age. Acknowledging and then ignoring with a smile any correction (for safety or any other reason) that you offered. In his own way, he too was untouchable.
Someone older and wiser had told him that the days go by slowly but the years rapidly. Someone else had told him that life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.
Good advice to remember he thought. And so he stopped making any plans. He leaned his head back, shut his eyes tight, held his breath and tried to make time stop. So he could feel now forever.
His one boy was eating animal crackers two fistfuls at a time, reaching both hands into the bag and coming out with giraffes and gazelles between his fingers. The kid's personality and charisma were indescribable. He was untouchable.
His other boy had the smile and face of his father's. And a head full of mischief, despite his age. Acknowledging and then ignoring with a smile any correction (for safety or any other reason) that you offered. In his own way, he too was untouchable.
Someone older and wiser had told him that the days go by slowly but the years rapidly. Someone else had told him that life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.
Good advice to remember he thought. And so he stopped making any plans. He leaned his head back, shut his eyes tight, held his breath and tried to make time stop. So he could feel now forever.
a dance
i was standing on my own two feet. you were dancing with me. i feel the dainty wrist draped over my shoulder. hand hanging down delicately, finger tips softly moving across my jacket. and things came to light that never have before.
this time tomorrow, all will be back to norm. chaotic, uncontrollable norm. but now, we sway silently. heads aglow, eyes not shut but unfocused, senses narrowed, breathing. not knowing tomorrow to exist. only knowing now. just. now.
this time tomorrow, all will be back to norm. chaotic, uncontrollable norm. but now, we sway silently. heads aglow, eyes not shut but unfocused, senses narrowed, breathing. not knowing tomorrow to exist. only knowing now. just. now.
09 January 2013
Listen to this...
“Why do you think you like it so much? You’ve played it over half a dozen times in a row.”
“I
don’t know, I love how she turns into a real person at the end there.
See? Right there, that’s real. Real life, no acting, no makeup, no
facade. Just real. I like seeing that for some reason. And holy god, the
song is so good, doesn’t it just gas you a bit?”
“Yeah, I mean it’s good, but it doesn’t tear me up.”
“Oh,
you’re listening to it the wrong way, then. Sit there. Stare straight
ahead. Open your head and just let the vocal in. Notice the rhythm, etc.
from the periphery, but really just let the vocal into your skull.”
“Okay, okay”
“No
really, I mean, everyone in the world is depressed to some degree about
something. If not, then you’re not feeling and that’s a whole other
problem. And this song, this song here, puts words and emotion to it.
It’s so simple with just the piano and the vocal, but so powerful. It
doesn't get better than this. It really doesn’t. We as a society have
been trying to perfect art for as long as time and the more we do, we
always come up short, because it doesn’t need to be perfected in any
way, true art, just is. It just exists. And this is as close as you’re
ever going to get. So don’t just give me an ‘okay okay’ and then only
half listen through the headphones. Really listen to this fucking song,
I’ll leave the room, but really listen to it and let it happen to you,
stop living for a second - just sit there and blink and breath - and
don’t think. She chose all these notes and transitions and emphases with
such care and reason. And look who gets his hands on it? Some dildo
that is just going to say within the first 10 or 15 seconds whether the
general Gestalt feel of the song sounds good or not.”
“But,
it has to sound good. Why am I going to spend 4 minutes listening to
something that isn’t pleasing to my ears? I’m not going to go digging
for a particular transition in a piece of shit.”
“It does sound good, you asshole.”
“Ha ha, give me the headphones and get me a beer.”
02 January 2013
when all the jesters in your head start barking. mocking, tickling and irksome. when the mirror's image edges closer to that of some older adult that you'd call 'sir' (or 'madam' even) than of you. when the inside of your head begs to be placed on the outside. so near bursting itself at the seams of your skull. when dishevelment is real and constant and encroaching on normalcy. pounding down on you like a deadline. and you can't just keep a straight face. like the cranial muscles have little fickle, arrogant minds of their own.
just tidy yourself up. pull your sagging jeans up above your waistline to at least shield the top 20% of your asscrack from public consumption. straighten your collar. smooth the wrinkles in your shirt. even better, change the shirt to something unstained. use water to part your hair hard to the left. a hard part that looks totally ridiculous, but do it anyway. just part the shit to the left and never mind the consequences. part it with a comb, but also follow the comb with the saliva-wet open palm of your right hand.
then look back at that GD mirror and hum a simple tune. and laugh a stupid laugh. or just breathe one single breath. recognize a solitary physical sensation, that of the pressure of the floor on your foot. smooth down that fly-away on the back left of your head. and smile back at that old weathered fucker with the shitty hairdo and love him. love him just for a second or two. he got you here in the first place. and as shitty as here is right now, he is basically all you've got to get you some place else.
just tidy yourself up. pull your sagging jeans up above your waistline to at least shield the top 20% of your asscrack from public consumption. straighten your collar. smooth the wrinkles in your shirt. even better, change the shirt to something unstained. use water to part your hair hard to the left. a hard part that looks totally ridiculous, but do it anyway. just part the shit to the left and never mind the consequences. part it with a comb, but also follow the comb with the saliva-wet open palm of your right hand.
then look back at that GD mirror and hum a simple tune. and laugh a stupid laugh. or just breathe one single breath. recognize a solitary physical sensation, that of the pressure of the floor on your foot. smooth down that fly-away on the back left of your head. and smile back at that old weathered fucker with the shitty hairdo and love him. love him just for a second or two. he got you here in the first place. and as shitty as here is right now, he is basically all you've got to get you some place else.
24 October 2012
18
The feeling had built until it filled my head.
I sat in the exact position that a body of this shape and structure would rest in if devoid of muscle activity and placed on its rump in this spot. Just and only breathing. In and out with the breaths.
Staring wildly at the grave marker. There was a rock there. The sky was clear at least. Bright and sharp and crisp, like the atmosphere had thinned slightly when he passed through it.
Thinking that somehow a moment of my life had passed without my having thought to remember it. And now scrambling to piece together something--any one thing, a sort of memory, or some other thing for myself--I realize that the ones I have are all wrong, the memories. All inflated to something that they were not when they happened or skewed by misinterpretation or distorted by my own quirks or just faded and fading more. And none of them even if remembered ever end up being what they were in reality anyway. Everything is polluted, unless you grab onto something real.
And so I still try to remember everything I can, but decide to especially remember the simpler things and to keep these simpler moments that we had with him front of mind and unpolluted. Because those simple times, I think, were closer to real life. And they maybe were experienced in close to the exact same way by the two of us, he and I, when they happened. And that is something to hang on to. That at one point in time we both saw and felt the same real thing.
They were all just moments. All of them. But all worth so much in the end. And certainly worth remembering and keeping with you....
...So put those seemingly trivial moments that you had with him in the same spot where you carry your personality, and your drive, and your motivations, and your empathy, and your compassion, and your outlook on life, and your actions and decisions as a father and as a husband, and your friendships, and your Faith, and your Hope, and your Love...and have them make you a better you. Make those moments something to live by and for.
And so before it happened, I bought him a compass. A simple compass. That I thought I would give to him when the time was right so that he would know that we wanted him to come look for us when we needed him and he would have it to help find his way. Because we will, need him. I never did give it to him. It was stupid. And he doesn't need it anyway. He's here...with us still.
I sat in the exact position that a body of this shape and structure would rest in if devoid of muscle activity and placed on its rump in this spot. Just and only breathing. In and out with the breaths.
Staring wildly at the grave marker. There was a rock there. The sky was clear at least. Bright and sharp and crisp, like the atmosphere had thinned slightly when he passed through it.
Thinking that somehow a moment of my life had passed without my having thought to remember it. And now scrambling to piece together something--any one thing, a sort of memory, or some other thing for myself--I realize that the ones I have are all wrong, the memories. All inflated to something that they were not when they happened or skewed by misinterpretation or distorted by my own quirks or just faded and fading more. And none of them even if remembered ever end up being what they were in reality anyway. Everything is polluted, unless you grab onto something real.
And so I still try to remember everything I can, but decide to especially remember the simpler things and to keep these simpler moments that we had with him front of mind and unpolluted. Because those simple times, I think, were closer to real life. And they maybe were experienced in close to the exact same way by the two of us, he and I, when they happened. And that is something to hang on to. That at one point in time we both saw and felt the same real thing.
They were all just moments. All of them. But all worth so much in the end. And certainly worth remembering and keeping with you....
...So put those seemingly trivial moments that you had with him in the same spot where you carry your personality, and your drive, and your motivations, and your empathy, and your compassion, and your outlook on life, and your actions and decisions as a father and as a husband, and your friendships, and your Faith, and your Hope, and your Love...and have them make you a better you. Make those moments something to live by and for.
And so before it happened, I bought him a compass. A simple compass. That I thought I would give to him when the time was right so that he would know that we wanted him to come look for us when we needed him and he would have it to help find his way. Because we will, need him. I never did give it to him. It was stupid. And he doesn't need it anyway. He's here...with us still.
24 June 2012
P L
and so there he sat, first wailing at the sky, hands fisted - up and down at his sides - and knuckles whitened, "oh no, no, no, no, no, no." something had changed and that was certain and but something had remained and that which remained was greater than or equal to that which had changed but this, for him, was still unclear at this point and would remain so, unclear, for some time to come. and for when that realization comes, it will be too late.
some one or thing was gone for him and basically for no one else, just for him. and some portion of life's love had gone with the departure. things were awkward and subnormal.
and back up to the sky, like there was an answer there for him. "time to get old or whatever."
and but the weight of the loss just bearing down on his bones heavily and incessantly. a boulder, a mountain, the globe at least. so that slowly the bones creak and crumble to dust. from bottom to top. first the feet and ankles, then the strong tibia and weak fibula of the shin. and the face just delirious, a frozen rictus staring down at the the gathering pile of skin and now-boneless muscle amassing on the ground underneath itself. and the head just slowly, stepwise descending to the pile with each crash of weight. then the long femur and the pelvis, noisily like twisting metal. the weight, his thoughts just dusting him. borne of its own poison. and ribs cracking together and eviscerated. all the while, head descending, face smiling somehow, and staring at himself without recognition or an apparent solitary thought. not in awe, not in pain, or despair, or even appreciating the finality, just dumb and blinking...and smiling frozen.
some one or thing was gone for him and basically for no one else, just for him. and some portion of life's love had gone with the departure. things were awkward and subnormal.
and back up to the sky, like there was an answer there for him. "time to get old or whatever."
and but the weight of the loss just bearing down on his bones heavily and incessantly. a boulder, a mountain, the globe at least. so that slowly the bones creak and crumble to dust. from bottom to top. first the feet and ankles, then the strong tibia and weak fibula of the shin. and the face just delirious, a frozen rictus staring down at the the gathering pile of skin and now-boneless muscle amassing on the ground underneath itself. and the head just slowly, stepwise descending to the pile with each crash of weight. then the long femur and the pelvis, noisily like twisting metal. the weight, his thoughts just dusting him. borne of its own poison. and ribs cracking together and eviscerated. all the while, head descending, face smiling somehow, and staring at himself without recognition or an apparent solitary thought. not in awe, not in pain, or despair, or even appreciating the finality, just dumb and blinking...and smiling frozen.
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