My ramblings....: October 2009

Saturday, October 31, 2009

RS

I just found something I've been searching for
For three years
I was disappointed

Red

There is a red light
Dim and hovering through black night
In this loud vehicle
And I wish I had someone's eyes to find through all this noise

Things I like: Birds, Love, and Rambling

Once there was a swallow
Who watched a robin from her tree
He worked and hopped and flew along the ground
Minded his own business, and occasionally sang her a robin's song
The swallow thought the robin's song was strange
But it was something she understood
So she watched and watched
And he worked and sang
And finally she twittered down from her perch
And they picked some worms from the grass
And fell in loved

...and lived happily ever after

Oh dear

I am going through withdrawl
It leaves me shaky and in need
I know I figured quitting for a while would be healthy
But goodness, it's harder than I thought

So I thank all you small statured people
For making it easier on me

Monday, October 26, 2009

I miss my home

Motels are turning their vacancy signs again
In the dawn still
Chilly from the rolling mists that cover the night
Lamps hang their light but it flickers like hospital hallways
Cars are just thinking about where they're not
No wonder it's hard to come alive in the morning

In All Honesty

A serious response to difficult subject matter:

Tingly bugs dance there way right up from my toes to my spine
And then leap and bound across the walls of my ribcage
Finally they explode into one million other happy insects
Which sing carols and jingles at the top of their little lungs
My brain tries to catch the beat, and does a tap-dance
And my heart, well she is long gone. She's visiting with some robins up in the clouds

And that is the rough draft.

Arctic

I am walking across a frozen lake
It creaks and mourns
And there are whales below who wake
And call to their babes

My feet and torso are covered in fur
Cheeks red, eyes blurred
My hair is rising up in the torrents
Shooting up, it almost reaches the sky

I've been walking for miles in this direction
The sun is my guide
The sky is blue, the sharp and cold kind
And minute shards of snow fill the air like exploding glass

I am as empty as this landscape
As barren as the sea

Friday, October 23, 2009

Silly Me

Oh my the world sees
I do think the world sees
You're giving me the creeps
I'm glad I didn't let you have me

It would have been a pitty
I mean that would have been the reason
My pitty for your upset
I just don't like the letdown

But goodness, I'm glad to see you
Scooping up that other girl
Taking her down the aisle
It freaks me out to think that could have been...
Never ever me!

Friday, October 16, 2009

The Other Half

She has welcomed a mighty ocean into our midst
And we wonder from where it came
But it is not of our consciousness, nor that of the day
It is her sense, her passion
It builds in waves, sounded from her voice
And crashes in gales from her hair

She is the dark of the night
The shadow of the universe
But in her is not terror nor fright

She is the kiss of the moon
The ageless companion of its crescent
She rests in his embrace
And pulls him through the night sky
The stars crown her head and are the jewels of her veil

Though she is hidden by reflections of light
She is the canvas from which all else shines
Without her midnight womb
No beacon is begotten
And the sun is her child, going forth from his mother's arms

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

I Am Moby, Waiting for a Train

The train comes to a shuddering stop and I stumble back and forth, too eager to get out the door. I enter the land of white. White tile, white lamps, white posters. White people passing look yellow though, in the fluorescent light. I remember in Moby Dick, there's this entire chapter dedicated to the meaning of the whale's 'whiteness', like how frightening and deep it is. (chapter 42, if you have an inclination to study further) At the final summing up of his evidence Melville concludes,
"Is it, that as an essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink?"
And aside from the confirmation that Melville writes the longest sentences of any author I've ever read, the meaning and unsettling feeling I get from these words really sticks with me.

I'm at the end of the platform. I got off near the middle and then walked to my right to see if anything ingenious would catch my eye but there's nothing, just the platform and posters for Boston Pizza and voting. So now I'm at a wall. I always feel dumb when I don't actually achieve something when I walk one direction because then people realize I never really had a plan in the first place, I am just hoping something will come along.
Oh well, I turn around and walk back and find a bench and pull out a pen and an old envelope so it will at least look like I am preoccupied. See I don't really have the whole whale issue like Ahab did, just the whiteness issue. I'm not going on a crazy hell descent just to find that one thing that I can base my whole life off of, front and back. I don't think I've found it but I don't think I'm looking for it either. I'm more of a 'take what you get and do what you can with it' kind of person. So that's where the problem lies. I'm not really sure what I've got so knowing what to do with it is slightly more perplexing. Thus, my whiteness issue.

My envelope is blank. But my pen cap is off. That'll show the curious onlookers. I can't remember what card this is. I don't even know why I keep so many cards in my bag anyways. Oh right, because I always have serious intentions of writing the person back, at least to say thanks for whatever nice sentiment they tried to bestow upon me via hallmark. I don't recall having responded once to date. I shuffle the card out and flip it over. It's purple with yellow and black pansies waving around the stretchy cursive writing: "Granddaughter..." Dammit. This is from March. I haven't even talked to my gram on the phone since then. Another train screams up, slows down, opens wide, shuts tight, speeds off. The platform room returns to its dull hum.

See, the reason whiteness is so frustrating is because you know in your heart there's something there but it's practically impossible for your brain to find it. You know if you go deep enough or mix the right things in or shine the light at just the right angle, it'll emerge and BAM, you've got this super great, vibrant creation. The thing is, you can shine the light a million times and still not get the angle right, and if you mix the wrong things in you just get something that closely resembles a piece of shit. Though no one would say it in quite those words, you'd know that's what they mean, and even more, you'd be sure of it with your whole self.
So it's a little more than frustrating. It's closer to terrifying when I really let myself think about it. But it's the kind of terror like in those stupid horror movies where you can't look away. Ever. Because the whiteness isn't the whale, it's you. So how do you look away, right?

I'm staring blankly at the tiles now. I can't even pretend to convince people I'm doing something because I can't help but doing nothing. At least I'm still assuming people are looking at me. I look down to the other side of the platform, towards the wall I didn't end up at. There are three Korean students waiting for the next train, two talking back and forth in a gossipy sort of way and the other listening to huge headphones. I watch them until the train scoops them off to never land and I decide that my favorite thing about Koreans, in a purely shallow respect, is their posture. Their chins are always slightly higher than everyone elses, and some people hate them just for that but I think it's more out of defiance than pride. I mean eventually it turns into pride but first they're defying everyone else to think any different. Maybe even their own insecurities and self-hate that humans seem to be born with or at least be trained to accept by our parents by the time we're four. So they defy that genetic voice that reminds us we were made from dirt and to dirt we'll return, and for a while they convince it that it's wrong and that they've got some diamond in them. They lift their chin and they have everybody believing that they've got a bit of god in them and then voila, they are pretty much accepted and expected to act like god for the rest of their life.

Speaking of which, and back to my friend Herman; Ahab is ranting and raving and convincing his crew to go on this deadly search for the white whale which has become is life obsession. But even then, Ahab isn't convinced it's the whale alone that is to blame or if the whale is just a means to someone else's end. He says,
"But in each event- in the living act, the undoubted deed- there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!"
So the thing that gets me here is that since I don't have a whale, just the whiteness, it actually makes me the whale. All poorly delivered jokes aside, that carrys a billion troublesome implications and maybe you can guess why I'm so torn up about the whole issue.
So what does this have to do with the Korean gods? Well it's more about the defiance. If I'm the whale then there is that 'thing' behind the whale telling me what to and what not to do and who I am and who I am not. The only way to fight back is to cut the whale wide open (metaphorically, stay with me) and shake my fist at the driving force that sent me swimming in the first place. Then in my defiance I have a little even ground with that force and I can throw out the whiteness and find something else. Purple or green or something cheesy like that.

And now you're probably confused because earlier I said there was something in the whiteness, something deep and powerful and worth something. But, I've learned it's actually more than a hell of a job to find, it's pretty much impossible for reasons I've already mentioned. Let me explain:

1) If the white whale is just a means to someone or something else's end, then that's all the whiteness is too. To try and explore and 'discover' (yea, like a safari) the depths of meaning the whiteness may or may not hold, you have to let the creature keep on swimming and living like it always did. So the mighty whale director can keep on directing the whale like it always did and nothing ever really changes. I can try to find the god in me, but it's still just a part of the whiteness, and the whiteness still belongs to the god out there. You have to kill the whale to even have a chance of getting away from it all and finding something new. Killing the whale is the only way to rebel. It's the only way to find whatever was wrong in the first place, before the whale was white.
2) That's the main point. This just adds to it, and that is that whiteness is always so damn detestable and horrifying. It's stark and empty while being infinitely loaded with the questions of the universe so no one even wants to get near it for fear of it spreading like a disease. That's why I hate it so much. I am the whiteness and it covers me like leprosy. Blank, restless, futile, always searching, ever unsatisfied.

I look down at my hand and notice a ton of paper strips. My envelope is no longer a functioning envelope. My eyes have counted almost every tile in this stop and I've been tearing my envelope to shreds but my brain hasn't registered any of this. The paper in my hand looks like extra long confetti. My butt hurts so I stand up. I figure I might as well leave now, and the fluorescent light is sending dull signals from the sides of my skull.
I'm standing near the edge of the platform and I can hear the distant squealing of the train and it makes me think, "damn, I was really hoping to find something at this station" But I guess it was too white to be conducive. Still, as the train pulls up I can't quite pull away so I figure maybe I still have something to write or something to do. It rushes away and I open my hand and a billion envelope shreds get tossed out from my hand by the wind and fill the wake of the train. I watch them collide and jump back up in the air and then finally fall to the metal tracks to be torn up by a billion more wheels.

In my other hand I'm still holding the purple pansy granddaughter card and I look at it for a long time, waiting for some sort of epiphany maybe. That's what I tell myself when I get staring and thinking for too long a time. But this time I'm just staring, tired of thinking. I figure I could stop by my gram's tonight, since that's the direction this train heads anyways. She'll probably make me freezer fresh fish and chips, which I'm okay with because I'm hungry enough and the batter they use at restaurants usually makes me sick. She always thinks that eating her homemade kind is a favorite childhood memory of mine so I might as well keep the dream alive. I can see the headlights of the next train getting larger in the tunnel. I put the purple card back in my bag, wait for the train to slow to a stop and slide its doors open, and get on.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Man in Antarctica

I have now been here for three months and one week.
The sun does not shine, I promise you. The sun does not shine and still the world continues to turn and I wonder how this deep longing was programmed within my body and soul. The longing for even one ray of the vivid star to stray across my vision.

It is passionate within me, like a fury, like a hunger. There are times when I feel wild like a starved wolf, eyes sharp and irrational. yet the thing I desire lays beyond the eternal skyline, and my futile grasps leave me gasping for some sort of rationality to bind my arms and head.
My mind often strays on nearly unstoppable rants into the bottomless depth of my need. For brief lucid moments I can gather this disorderly shrapnel back into myself, compartmentalize, and separate from it. There is one thing I can really compare my plight of sunlight severence to, and this is only a supposition of my imagination, as I've never personally experienced it. That is, the lack of gravity. The solidarity and dependancy we have upon it suddenly gone, our belongings then rise into space and though we reach and strain we are unable to gahther it all back to ourself. This is how I feel, though it is the belongings of my mind that are drifting away. I swim as if in a hopeless dream, barely going anywhere ut pushing to find the destination.

Perhaps you can imagine, my panic and strain sometimes seems insurmountable. I did not imagine this natural time clock of the earth to be so precious and intimately bound to my soul. And yet my days are not so much passed in study and observation as they are simply reminiscing of the days I once sat in broad daylight, and imagining what joy I will again experience when I am reunited with this ancient solar being.
It has become obsessive, I realize, but there is nothing else when it has taken half of my body and soul with the day.

Friday, October 09, 2009

Theos

There are a lot of people
Who can't hold me tight enough
Can't keep me strong enough
They can't tell me I'm beautiful enough
Or make me feel safe enough

And that's when I'm reminded, I can't get enough of you

Monday, October 05, 2009

The Message

Tonight, I attempt to call you

You across the city, country, world, universe

I dial your heart
I hope I have the right number
The line isn't direct, never seems to be
So I leave a message

I hope you'll get it, or at least see the flashing red light, and maybe know it's from me.....

Mother

In the straits
We paddle
Our eyes only turned
Towards the womb of our natural mother

She calls with words of wind and scattering boulders
We hear her in the night, echoing off distant canyons
And when we wake, she sends her revelations with the wolves and the jays
When she shouts, it is never paniced or fearful
But alerting, protective
Or, like the mothers she has fostered over the ages
She calls her children to gather at her breast
And to care for their matriarch in her old age

So we press on
Returning to the place of birth
Setting forth our arms and spirits
To uphold the body who once upheld ours

Simply

Who is this love?
He beckons at the window, knocking at the door
He writes notes and leaves them by my porch
He sits on the doorstep and waits for hours until I come out
He enjoys the sunlight and the birds and the breeze
Until I finally join him at his side, enjoying it with him
He always whispers how much he loves me
I can't help but say it back
Sometimes I wonder if we should say more, if this will get old?
But those are the only words that suffice
The only words that bring me such joy
The best words I can say to explain myself

Oh My!

I've been perusing my past spouts, making myself sick with the thought of myself. Whatever do you think of me? It's all seeped in double meaning and blatant directions. Some of the relics are pleasant, I've put them to rest deep in my soul. It's the recent explosions and contrivances which make me hide my face behind my hands.

Take a moment, turn myself to God. We talked about this last night, right? You're all crazy about authenticity that you can't even figure yourself out.
Right
Sit back in my chair. I am so embarrassed right now, regretful, irrational, helpless, hopeless.

And....
over it.
Almost.

This is it right? My heart and soul. Welcome, I suppose. It's a bit early. Others have been here much longer but they're on the same playing field. All about baring it all. Vulnerability! Oh mother Mary and assorted other saints, that's what it is! I wasn't prepared to lurch so quickly into THAT part of things, though I suppose it was always in the back of my mind.

"I need you so much closer" being repeated by Death Cab is playing in my headphones. There is a compass on the window beside me. Read me read me read me read me.

Fear is my ultimate sometimes. The ultimate worst, the ultimate master, the ultimate control, the ultimate lame station manager. I hate it and I'm ready to give it up. I mean at least I'm over the "denial" stage, but I forget what the one after that is. Here it is, a big mess of fear, all out on the floor.

Take a moment, turn myself to God. I brought a mop and bucket. I'm straining it in and dumping it out....like WAY out.
Of course you are
Sit back in my chair. I can hear the mop swishing, the fear is draining out the back door.

Here is what I've decided: I'm standing up to you. Not in aversion or rebellion, but in a ferocious nakedness. I'm a bit cold, a bit raw, helplessly vulnerable. There goes my pride.
"you need directions, I'll be your guide", he sings. It perfectly rhymed with pride.
This is me! Hey! This is me!

Letter to the Constellations

Sitting in a break room
Writing to the stars:

"Dear (Andromeda, Capricornus, Pegasus, Ursa...)
I've been watching you for a while
Studying the way you move
Sometimes it lulls me to sleep
Sometimes it keeps my spirit riveted
I've chosen to follow you to the ends of the earth
In days past I've realized I can't live without you
I keep looking up
The daylight is painful
Your absence etches itself across my heart,
I see it written there, silver scars
Everybody reminds me that you're always there
But I can't stand not being able to see you for hours on end
Laying in some grassy plain, or craning my neck to find you in the city
I'm coming to find you soon,
Dear,
I'm coming to find you soon"

Thursday, October 01, 2009

The Crow, Piece 1

The crow quietly follows the man
He is tall and dark and green eyed
He walks purposefully, as though conveying he has somewhere to go
But with a slight hunch
The shoulders not straight and long
Like one who is confident beyond their own consciousness
As though the strength of their shoulders was only assigned them,
Instead, his curve forward, if only slightly
As if being drawn forward by a calling finger
Protecting the sternum, and that within

The crow watches him walk in his way
She flies overhead to gather his path
And where it might lead
The path is concrete, cold and prescripted
He's laid all these slabs himself
And is walking each step
Yet they seem to be slipping below him
Like these strange grey foundations have suddenly become as slippery as ice
Lost hold on the earth below them
They start to slip out and up from his footfalls
Still he struggles to move forward
Driven,
His eyes look forward unwavering

And yet, behind them, the look of fear begins to rise
The crow had not noticed it before
It must have been hidden deep below
Behind the ribs, low into the soul
He had gathered it up in bundles
And stuffed it into doorways
But now as he walks on this increasingly chaotic roadway
Slipping and stuttering forward as his concrete flies
The fear rises,
Like ocean waves eclipsing lower portholes

In the midst of the rocky uproar
The crow observes one moment,
On the face of the man,
Of indecision
She watches a barely discernible weakening
His face slackens
Knees sag
She can even see his fingers twitch
As if raised by an electric current
Desiring to reach sideways,
To grab for some hold

And then it passes
The man begins to viciously grab at his concrete slabs
All floating raucously in the air above his head
He snatches them furiously and slams them together
Five, seven, twenty slabs high
In one tall tower behind him
He forces it to stay

No longer will he be able to walk in the direction he came
Less he dismantles this cold cemented high rise
So he only continues to look forward, as before
Refusing to look to the side
Heated in his momentary lapse of steeled control
In which he almost leaned against the stability of outward forces

The crow flies lower, curious at the man's state
After such upheaval
He seems to have tethered the fears, tied them in tighter straps
And thrown them deep into crevice of his soul
He takes only a minute to gather himself in the silence
Straighten his back, mouth, gaze
Like a properly aligned tie
Shoulders still bent slightly
By that beckoning finger
Which seems to call him
Though he is not aware of the weight
Which it inflicts upon his body

We walks forward with his dedicated strides

The crow decides not to fly any closer
She would not be heard
And if seen, considered only petty distraction
She glances with pity at the strange man
And leaves his calculated chaos for the day

Later, that evening

the crow sits quietly in the grey light of her nest
A dove enters softly
Nudging the crow from her contemplation
The dove has a white paper in her grasp
With ancient words written upon it
The grow has her misgivings, all out of self-protection
This crow always seems to uncover the crow's discrepancies
And gently bring to light her flawed judgements
Upon the people she hovers around

On the paper is written this:
"Let your eyes look straight ahead,
Fix your gaze directly before you.
Make level paths for your feet
And take only ways that are firm.
Do not swerve to the right or the left;
Keep your foot from evil"

The crow ruffles her wings
Staring cautiously at the dove
As though asking for an verification of this truth
The dove does not shift, only gazes in return
Then departs from the nest in a shimmer of light

The Crow, Intro

I am on a mysterious and dangerous journey once again
One that requires displacing myself
Setting it up upon a shelf
Neatly tucked in body and mind
And quietly entering those of another
Stealing myself inside,
Slipping on your limbs and thoughts
Like a snug jacket
Which I try for size and move for a bit
And then discard for another
I will crawl myself into your eyes, hands, lips, chest
And try to pick up what you've left there
Everybody forgets things
I like to find those thoughts, wants, desires, pains
And take them for my own
Arranging them on the story board
Like paper machet,
See through, painted glass mosaic
Until they appear as my own creation
I am a crow of sorts,
Collecting the glamorous things which people seem to drop
And making with them my own woven nest

My ramblings....