the painting of that proud african lion which graced the north wall of your blue tiled kitchen, it was the last possession i wanted returned to me;
it became something of an obsession.
so i walked to your house defiantly and we talked then shouted and moments later wood and paper shards were strewn all about the bedroom.
i gathered the pieces and left for the door unwillingly, understanding that every step meant i moved farther away from you,
the real real you -
your hair, your skin,
your ass.
i took what i could and threw them in the yard:
a mane, a foot, an eye, the fur of the tail,
and left them to rot.
a misty rain on on a thursday on the second to last day in may washed the paint away from each jagged shape,
its stuff spread across the grass and spilled into the pavement, running into the street becoming a mess of a thing.
on your step, i smoke a cigarette and, moments later, i've trapped a beetle under an empty whiskey glass while a stranger passed by and didn't ask me how my day was;
didn't ask me why i thought i was the center of the universe;
never once begged me to tell her that i loved her.
and i was grateful for that favor, she must have been a sage to have had the foresight to know that we wouldn't last,
that everything passes,
that all the joys we could share would, too.
a lingering smell of lilacs entered my senses while i walked through the park not needing anything,
i sat under a maple tree and watched the trail of an airplane far up in the distance spell some unfamiliar name and every moment that passed was filled with something -
the bark of a german shepherd,
the bell of a tandem bike,
the crackle of a cigarette smoked
the splashes of water colliding into itself in the fountain -
and all of it became boxed in a memory, instantly.
the memories of us, whatever meaning was left, it went with the paint,
like it, it faded away,
was immediate in its end, and went on and became nothing.
what can i call all this feeling i have that refuses to be translated or even told in the first place
the feeling of losing something constantly that couldn't be lost in the first place,
something which was nothing at all,
in the first place;
with what names, what words;
what profound statements or conjectures?
what else is there to call it, but love?
WOULDN'T IT BE NICE
i'll meet him someday when he's old with silver hair
he walks with a cane and puffs a pipe and it's a day
when he coughs softly into worn and wrinkled hands
on that day perhaps i will, in that moment, wrap my arms
around him or trace the lines of his aged face with my
right index finger to find myself in the edges and curves
but i may also just think of the children with sesame street
umbrellas, yellow duck rain boots fixed on their small
feet, bidding ado to their mothers on front yards cut neat
or i'll take him back home on an icy night in the fall
to the lawn of the schoolyard where i made my breath
stink of cigarettes and beer and spit and love
and we'll lay on our backs and look backwards upside
down so that the earth is the sky and the sky is the
land and the stars point us to the cosmopolitan
we will talk of what it felt like for him, the
holding of her shaky hands while standing in an
ivy covered church when bells and cheers rang
the lighting of sparklers at the apple festival
and the dipping of hot legs in cool river water
with a straw hat on top of full black hair
i'll make him answer all the infinite questions like
why it is so hard to love even oneself? and what are
we to make of all this stuff of life?
i'll make him answer
there is no doubt that
i'll make him
he walks with a cane and puffs a pipe and it's a day
when he coughs softly into worn and wrinkled hands
on that day perhaps i will, in that moment, wrap my arms
around him or trace the lines of his aged face with my
right index finger to find myself in the edges and curves
but i may also just think of the children with sesame street
umbrellas, yellow duck rain boots fixed on their small
feet, bidding ado to their mothers on front yards cut neat
or i'll take him back home on an icy night in the fall
to the lawn of the schoolyard where i made my breath
stink of cigarettes and beer and spit and love
and we'll lay on our backs and look backwards upside
down so that the earth is the sky and the sky is the
land and the stars point us to the cosmopolitan
we will talk of what it felt like for him, the
holding of her shaky hands while standing in an
ivy covered church when bells and cheers rang
the lighting of sparklers at the apple festival
and the dipping of hot legs in cool river water
with a straw hat on top of full black hair
i'll make him answer all the infinite questions like
why it is so hard to love even oneself? and what are
we to make of all this stuff of life?
i'll make him answer
there is no doubt that
i'll make him
ALWAYS WATCH THE CLOCK
there is not much better than midnight drives in the country among abandoned sheds and coyotes and fields of wheat with windows down and the air swirling around, the cigarette smoke and heat dancing in a waltz, with one arm poking out wide from the side of the car like a toothpick in the twilight breezes, or on a walk on the first day of spring noticing all the life in the burgeoning scene, on a perfectly sunny day, when the lyrics god must have carved the clouds into animal shapes is tested and proved to be tried and true, and to lay on an afternoon grass, later, seeping its steamy air out into the immediate atmosphere, where a woman whose eyes are of such exquisite and perplexing beauty one just simply cannot stop looking into them, as she talks about the stars and outer-space, how the sun is made out of the same stuff as we are and you should think that and believe it and know it is true.
there is not much better than writing down a passing thought. a passing thought which is written when my body is in the exact right physical position, and the words are written without knowing how it was written, and each moment is given meaning which somehow, makes sense: hands in a comfortable hover over the keys, legs crossed, like the look a bald professor with a handlebar mustache smoking a pipe in the middle of the sixty-eighth iteration of an impassioned lecture on the meaning of tragedy, tragedy like the loss of his wife due to a seatbelt malfunction, or tragedy like the day he received a call from the school's principal notifying him that his son was harassed and beaten up at school for being gay, or tragedy like the time he lost his hamster and found it dead in the air vent when he was eight, and his parents didn't buy him a new one -- like that image of a wise old man speaking in a calm and docile manner would give, i sit and type and write and i am awakened.
nothing better than knowing that every moment that passes by instantaneously is full of meaning, splendid meaning ... and so much of it. that here we are, stuck in a body on a planet in this universe already enlightened with the knowledge that everything exists when it exists, and is what it is, and just is. but the crazy thing, the 'nothing better' part of it all, that we can write and make the meaning, make what we want of this crazy, hysterically genius life.
there is not much better than writing down a passing thought. a passing thought which is written when my body is in the exact right physical position, and the words are written without knowing how it was written, and each moment is given meaning which somehow, makes sense: hands in a comfortable hover over the keys, legs crossed, like the look a bald professor with a handlebar mustache smoking a pipe in the middle of the sixty-eighth iteration of an impassioned lecture on the meaning of tragedy, tragedy like the loss of his wife due to a seatbelt malfunction, or tragedy like the day he received a call from the school's principal notifying him that his son was harassed and beaten up at school for being gay, or tragedy like the time he lost his hamster and found it dead in the air vent when he was eight, and his parents didn't buy him a new one -- like that image of a wise old man speaking in a calm and docile manner would give, i sit and type and write and i am awakened.
nothing better than knowing that every moment that passes by instantaneously is full of meaning, splendid meaning ... and so much of it. that here we are, stuck in a body on a planet in this universe already enlightened with the knowledge that everything exists when it exists, and is what it is, and just is. but the crazy thing, the 'nothing better' part of it all, that we can write and make the meaning, make what we want of this crazy, hysterically genius life.
SO HARD TO TAKE IT EASY
its nice to listen to current favorite song at the earliest point in time one can say ah what a beautiful morning without being wrong, when a spring sky bleeds pink and orange all over the horizon, and trails of planes at various heights in that painted canvas don't dissipate, and just stay hanging in the air, and the sound of construction hums and bums mining dumpsters for aluminum cans and scraps for snacks startles a lone cardinal perched at the tip of a branch on a magnolia tree in the middle of the university oval--to just contemplate life through puffs and drags of a cigarette without any intention of resolving the infinite contradictions life presents, as a warm breeze executes its serenity all over me.
it's very easy to stay up throughout a night, to stay up all through it until sunrise, to find yourself on a porch smoking a cigarette frantically, when something is missed, or someone, for that matter.
it's also easy to forget who you are, where you are, what you are, when you are, how you are, during the listening of an amazing song. easy to become absent, or nothing, in the reading of an epic poem, or in the certain recognition that some man or woman has been able to express with near perfect language all the thoughts and feelings which inhabit your own mind and soul and spirit. also, easy to become nothing when watching the sunrise, smoking a cigarette.
but, on the other hand, it's hard to listen to an amazing song and forget who you are when staying up late at night missing something, or especially, someone.
but change is constant and happens instantaneously. so it makes it hard to focus less on the past and less on the future, to get to the stuffs which really matters: that immediate present when hard or easy isn't a question yet, life is just lived.
because all these atoms which are directly in front of us and around us are atoms of the rolling thundering waves of a distant waterfall in South America, of the sprawling desert sands in Africa, of stars exploding in the heavens, light years away, atoms which never stay still, are never the same, are always changing, transforming, becoming something more beautiful, hopefully.
we need to remember that is why life is so complicated, because all the things we think are solid and structured and stay the same (especially the people we love), absolutely do not do that. absolutely nothing stays the same; haven't we learned that already?
look at me, now. already, i'm different, i've changed.
go on ... be different; change, too.
it's very easy to stay up throughout a night, to stay up all through it until sunrise, to find yourself on a porch smoking a cigarette frantically, when something is missed, or someone, for that matter.
it's also easy to forget who you are, where you are, what you are, when you are, how you are, during the listening of an amazing song. easy to become absent, or nothing, in the reading of an epic poem, or in the certain recognition that some man or woman has been able to express with near perfect language all the thoughts and feelings which inhabit your own mind and soul and spirit. also, easy to become nothing when watching the sunrise, smoking a cigarette.
but, on the other hand, it's hard to listen to an amazing song and forget who you are when staying up late at night missing something, or especially, someone.
but change is constant and happens instantaneously. so it makes it hard to focus less on the past and less on the future, to get to the stuffs which really matters: that immediate present when hard or easy isn't a question yet, life is just lived.
because all these atoms which are directly in front of us and around us are atoms of the rolling thundering waves of a distant waterfall in South America, of the sprawling desert sands in Africa, of stars exploding in the heavens, light years away, atoms which never stay still, are never the same, are always changing, transforming, becoming something more beautiful, hopefully.
we need to remember that is why life is so complicated, because all the things we think are solid and structured and stay the same (especially the people we love), absolutely do not do that. absolutely nothing stays the same; haven't we learned that already?
look at me, now. already, i'm different, i've changed.
go on ... be different; change, too.
SUPPLIES
i was fond of a joke back in the 6th grade. it went something like, a foreman at a construction site had assigned three different people jobs. the african man was set to do the architecture. the hispanic man was all set to do the decorations. the asian man was set to provide the supplies. well, on the day of the big meeting to begin construction, the foreman came out and asked each man if they had their items in order. the african man said, yes, architecture all set. the hispanic man says, yes, decorations all in order. but, no where to be found is the asian man. the foreman yells out, where is this guy?
then out of nowhere, the asian man jumps out and yells, "supplies!"
anyway. point of that joke is to say that surprises are quite pleasant. in the case of the foreman, probably not as pleasant. but i think the moral of that joke is that it is good to enjoy the surprises in life. the butterfly you see randomly walking home. the child getting licked by a dog on the street. a man on stilts with an umbrella dancing to frank sinatra. all those moments that you didn't expect and couldn't have planned for make life what life is, invests us with energy and spirit. so it's good to focus on those times. and they can be incredibly simple, like the pleasant surprise of a warm sunny day, or something magnificently fated, as an instantaneous entwining of two bodies filled with the ecstasy of being young and wide eyed and alive.
then out of nowhere, the asian man jumps out and yells, "supplies!"
anyway. point of that joke is to say that surprises are quite pleasant. in the case of the foreman, probably not as pleasant. but i think the moral of that joke is that it is good to enjoy the surprises in life. the butterfly you see randomly walking home. the child getting licked by a dog on the street. a man on stilts with an umbrella dancing to frank sinatra. all those moments that you didn't expect and couldn't have planned for make life what life is, invests us with energy and spirit. so it's good to focus on those times. and they can be incredibly simple, like the pleasant surprise of a warm sunny day, or something magnificently fated, as an instantaneous entwining of two bodies filled with the ecstasy of being young and wide eyed and alive.
RIPPLES
obviously there are numerous interests which have melded together to form a composite of craziness in me, but one big one is the fact that everyone around me is experiencing so much life i can't help but receive some of that residual. it's just explosions exploding into each other. the violence of a ripple hitting another ripple in a giant pond, or the ocean. there is some kind of intense energy you get from nature, but people, too. they are like nature. if a beautiful woman walks in the room, it lights up. if your friends are in some kinds of crazy zones, it affects you. it's crazy, yo.
OLD TO BEGIN
is another way of saying "i was so much older then, i'm younger than that now." and it's true. life as i know it reversed, and like benjamin button, i am slowly returning to a certain wide-eyed state. a certain joy in every new thing that appears in front of me. a certain desire to clutch onto anything that has meaning, and a certain delight in everything because everything has meaning.
there is also love. also friendship. also the naiveness of the midnight hour, drunk. all that and the difficulty of understanding certain things, to act upon emotion, or to do precisely that and regret it. or perhaps the terrifying truth that we don't know anything about what is to come. and there is also innocence, and the feeling of being loved, and giving love, which all has not much to do with the making of love. and the unsettling recognition that love can't be made out of nothing, but requires both people to be nothing.
although i write and it comes out perhaps articulate and with some semblance of art and emotion it does not give me as much joy as i thought it would. there is a song which says that 'all is lost if it's not heard.' since i do not want all of this feeling to be lost i will write it even though it is not all of it. it's better to have some of all rather than lose it all.
i like to say lately that i can see stars exploding in other galaxies. or that i can hear the beat of wings of a single bird flying incredibly high in the sky with a group of other geese coming back north for the spring. or that i can smell the specific hibiscus in a low plain next to a cactus outside mexico city. and i can feel the cool ocean waves of the atlantic brush against my feet and soak the bottoms of my jeans. and i hear the voices and melodies of friends and the plucks of strings by calloused tips of fingers.
all that is true because lately i have not been able to write. nothing comes out or if it does it does not suffice. it just means that i have been living a lot of life and have no time to choose the right words. and words are too important to not choose correctly.
but what else can i do, tonight, when life is unbearably lifey and it takes over me. then it's not really me who writes just the moment itself. what else is there to do when eyes though shut don't stop seeing. when i have dreamt so many dreams in the hours i am awake, i am afraid to sleep else be overwhelmed by more dreams. when a cloudy sky with a full white moon beckons for one more cigarette and a few crisp moments to brood among the traffic hum of the city.
it is nearly impossible to sleep with the knowledge of spring, and so many beginnings. that all this life is around me and so much is almost born, being born, is born-again. and then to think of it all also reminds me that something, so many things, have ended.
oh, yes, so many ends and beginnings. beginnings and ends.
and here i am; to not lose it all; to end and begin.
there is also love. also friendship. also the naiveness of the midnight hour, drunk. all that and the difficulty of understanding certain things, to act upon emotion, or to do precisely that and regret it. or perhaps the terrifying truth that we don't know anything about what is to come. and there is also innocence, and the feeling of being loved, and giving love, which all has not much to do with the making of love. and the unsettling recognition that love can't be made out of nothing, but requires both people to be nothing.
although i write and it comes out perhaps articulate and with some semblance of art and emotion it does not give me as much joy as i thought it would. there is a song which says that 'all is lost if it's not heard.' since i do not want all of this feeling to be lost i will write it even though it is not all of it. it's better to have some of all rather than lose it all.
i like to say lately that i can see stars exploding in other galaxies. or that i can hear the beat of wings of a single bird flying incredibly high in the sky with a group of other geese coming back north for the spring. or that i can smell the specific hibiscus in a low plain next to a cactus outside mexico city. and i can feel the cool ocean waves of the atlantic brush against my feet and soak the bottoms of my jeans. and i hear the voices and melodies of friends and the plucks of strings by calloused tips of fingers.
all that is true because lately i have not been able to write. nothing comes out or if it does it does not suffice. it just means that i have been living a lot of life and have no time to choose the right words. and words are too important to not choose correctly.
but what else can i do, tonight, when life is unbearably lifey and it takes over me. then it's not really me who writes just the moment itself. what else is there to do when eyes though shut don't stop seeing. when i have dreamt so many dreams in the hours i am awake, i am afraid to sleep else be overwhelmed by more dreams. when a cloudy sky with a full white moon beckons for one more cigarette and a few crisp moments to brood among the traffic hum of the city.
it is nearly impossible to sleep with the knowledge of spring, and so many beginnings. that all this life is around me and so much is almost born, being born, is born-again. and then to think of it all also reminds me that something, so many things, have ended.
oh, yes, so many ends and beginnings. beginnings and ends.
and here i am; to not lose it all; to end and begin.
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