A position

It seems as if I have found something I need to do. Take pictures. Record what I see. Tell people what I know before I take these days for granted, one by one, two by two.

Power of Cyan

This is the kind of power that gets buildings built
Then tears them down again
From the hands of humans

I'd love to be Picasso
Because then I'd at least
I'd see in colors
Everyone has those
Days draped in Gray
And I want cyan
And it will be so.

We're all trapped
In an
Antfarm of brakelights
Writing on the walls in the dark

I'd love to be Picasso
Because then I'd at least
I'd see in colors
Everyone has those
Days draped in Gray
And I want cyan
And it will be so.

Informal

When the lie fails
When the law fails
Maybe my life
Isn't
Draped with garlands
But at least
I'm full of
pawn shop promises

An anger subsidy
Trained like mass effects
Robots
Robots
They need to speak colloquially.

I feel a creeping
Uncertainty
An anger subsidy
Training

They need to speak colloquially.

Dark Channel

Intake
I'm stuck on the dark channel
I've got my shiny guns and my plastic cups
I've got just about something I can feel

This room's got spirits.
This window's clear

I'm stuck on the dark channel
But I will find the way out
I will
Don't worry, Mom


I think I'm having a heart attack
It feels like sweet relief
When every thought brings me to the swamp
A good time one good job out of reach
I just want to feel real again
Like my eyes stay open

I remember when I could read
And when my heart still beat
I remember when I didn't think they were all laughing at me
And I remember laughing at the others
Because I was scared of me
I'm sorry God

Why did He do this to me?
I can't understand it
I wouldn't even wish this kind of shit
On my own worst enemy.
This is me
And I can't believe it's a disease


But you know
It does no good to run from a fortune-teller future
But to realize that you, like everyone else, are valid too
And your life is real and valuable and worth more than scornful looks
If you've been in that ditch, that cistern
There's nothing you can't do

I'm a big believer in forgiveness
Even from antiquity
Because the birds will keep singing
Flying overhead

Apostates and Animals

I think we forget that at the time, these modern-day heroes were reviled like the worst apostates and criminals. At the time, it probably seemed like these people were so "uncool"
almost insane.
They must have seemed dangerously radical, criminal, fringe.
But all they can do is search for the truth and fight for what they believe is right.
It matters not what others think.

Because there is only one judgment and it is withheld from us all.

We study to understand our lives as history. Our own choices, too, are constrained.

El mundo era tan reciente, que muchas cosas carecían de nombre

You can learn something
Every minute if you keep mind

Puedes aprender mucho, nunca todo
Si mantienes una mente tranquila

La vida es de caminar, andar
No es un camino al destino concreto
Busca a la verdad y vas a encontrarla
En los lugares más impredecibles.

Because even when your eyes see a desert
And your ears hear a tundra
Have a rainforest attitude
Because life is diverse.

It's so easy
To be absorbed by these clouds.

A series of loud noises

[Em - C - D/E slide - Esus2-Em(5)]
A stanza with no meter

A lot of the time I'm followed around
by a crowd of naysayers and detractors.
Their criticism is way beyond what could be considered
constructive.
On the contrary, it's nothing but aspersions.
Insults cast out from some ivory tower
With residence in the mirror

[Em - C - D - Gmaj - Cmaj7sus4]
All hope appears to be diminished
It's looking bad
No it's not looking good

The wolves are right on my heels
I can't weather the storm of noise
The shoulds and musts, the don'ts and the woulds
Bear so heavy, raining pure lye
There's nothing that can be done
Sound the retreat, put up the flags
Lie prostrate in your lies
[E-F-F#-G dim]

All love is gone, nothing is possible
The only thing I have left
Is a pitiful shell
A laughable caricature
That no one else seems to see

This is it
It's over
And into the bus lane I run
And into the sea I jump
Just to make it quiet again

Silences are sometimes the loudest
Silence is often sometimes the loudest
Oh silence is sometimes the loudest thing
Silence is the often sometimes the loudest
[E5+5th - C5+5th]

And then I wake up
But I never once slept
The sun won't let me rest
[Gmaj - Amaj]

Silence is the loudest
[E5+5th - C5+5th]

Self-righteous anger

Every so often, emphasis on often, there presents itself a situation where anger is justified. Where indeed some notable wrong has been done against me or someone to which I am lovingly beholden. It, if it were presented to a hypothetical jury, would almost definitely be approved for a strong reaction. Suffice it to say that an outburst would be "justified".
But there lurks a more tacit and dangerous injustice in this self-righteous anger.
Remember that everyone else is trying to stay above water just like you and sometimes you become their life preserver. It might push you under for a little bit.
But you know how to tread water.

Em - Cmaj - D/E/D - Em4
Em - Cmaj - D/E/D - G maj
Em - Cmaj - D/E/D - F-Em
D7 - G - D7 - Em
Talking myself into an early coffin

Inertia: Lofty Ideas and Sea Change

A friend of mine told me she wishes she could slap me.
I'm getting closer to getting why now.

At first it seemed like getting fucked up was the way to be different - the way to rebel or make a statement. It was the way to set yourself apart from the pack, to be daring, to do something new. But now it becomes more and more clear to me that it is the way to maintain the status quo of existence. When you intoxicate and adulterate your brain, you exact upon your soul a sense of inertia; immobility. You sit around and have deep conversations about the way things should be, the myriad injustices of the world, the senses in which people are wronged and mistreated.
But you never do a goddamned thing about it.
A good friend of mine once told me that his high school baseball coach used to tell him he had "living room balls". This eloquent turn of phrase simply means that you'll sit around in your living room positing theories and asserting yourself. From the comfortable, hazy ambience of your armchair you will tell people how it should be, the things you'll someday do to change everything.
But when you get out on the field you freeze. You turn into a person afraid to actually stick themselves out there and make a change. You can't risk failure on the field, but you can preach from the bully pulpit in front of your couch with your good friends nodding their heads.
I say it's time for a sea change.
A good friend of mine was just telling me how so many people have lofty ideas and principles, but never put their money where their mouth is.
"They didn't just make that phrase up for no reason, you know?"
They didn't. But the world is full of couch theorists and armchair philosophers. So the time hasn't just come for difference-making to start with yourself: it's now, then, and it always has been. We just stupefy ourselves into thinking that making a difference is just around the corner.
I for one am going to get off my proverbial and literal ass.

"As I wouldn't pay a penny to hear your thoughts..."

There comes a time

This blank page staring back at me is clawing at my eyes
Everything with perspective turns introspective and I can't trust it
Only a few things give me comfort, only a few things still feel real
There comes a big gray cloud that seems insuperable
And I realize that the rain has to come in my life as well
All things come to pass

My vision is like an Owl Creek Overpass
I hang the lantern to find my way back in the dark
But the wind took away the flame and now I'm stuck in the depths of the forest
There's a precipitous path that I question with every step
Every step begets a question, every eye registers displeasure and disdain

Maybe I'll find that lantern
Maybe I'll relight it

There's no way to tell

Because it's already there

We need to learn how to stop keeping that gold just out of our grasp
And realize the gold that's already on the inside
The good, the gold, the right
Use your energy for good
Change what you can
Help who you can
But don't scourge yourself because you couldn't save the whole world with two cents

And there isn't an infinite list of mistakes and incorrect actions and errors
And the normative means of communication are rightly down

You are whole

And the gold is in your heart

Su mente

It's time to gain some ground
I just want to keep the fire inside of me from turning this into a wholesale conflagration
I can't lie
I can't be untrue

Nebulas

I just want to feel good
That's the only thing about this
I'm about the point where not just one thing
Is going to make up and make me feel better
When you have a haybale
There's no last straw
When you have a chasm
You'll never reach the end
Leads me sadly mistaken

I'm sick and tired of playing this like a game I'm losing
Calculating every last thing, weighing, balancing, judging
See a misshapen man
And you'll be hopelessly mistaken
And I can't help you

Freedom is when you have nothing left to lose
And we'll always have something

He's a linguistics major

"All he eats is linguine for dinner."
"I would go as far to say as I wouldn't trust any man with a goatee."
"Cheese is the duct tape of food, dude. If anything is going wrong with your culinary endeavors, you can most likely remedy it with some cheese. If anything, it certainly won't hurt."
On The South: "They eat so much salt their blood is like the Dead Sea, but without as many Jews."

Standing on the verge of a sometimes frightening reality

This is a time in our lives that is rife with uncertainty.
This is a time in our life where nothing is concrete, nothing is sure. We've been holding hands for so long now that to be let go is more of a shock than ever was the direness of being controlled. Now, all of a sudden they want us to go out there and make decisions for ourselves, do things on our own?

Who is out there in that sea of puzzles?
Is there a lantern at one of these docks? The river's currents are beginning to pull me into the undertow. I'm working hard to hold onto these styrofoam life preserver.

Into the gray we go. And hopefully at some point it becomes red and black.

You just have to know yourself to know yourself.

This is the opposite of an ocean of apathy. This is a sea of too much caring. So much that it's become crushing at times and I seem to become immobile.

But there is a lantern on that dock.

Rain's a coming

It shows there have been good times as well as not so good ones. Keep your shoulders straight. Remember that redemptive rain. It won't always be so clear.
But enjoy the times it is.

We can only go home in maps

As I sit here in this fetid stew of sweat and regrets it has dawned on me that we can only go home in maps. The place we once held so dear the times where we soaked up the most sun can only be reached in the vaults of our own skulls, buttressed by dendrites and neurons, there is nothing here but a smile. There can be nothing more of those indexed thoughts and emotions, those laughs, those tears. In their stead there must be created new halls, new annexes of hearts that we will not forget. When the past is clung to it starts to erode the future. Like the bank of river choked off by developments, you will wallow away. And now the zooming in is all we have left. It is all we know. And you're bound to be bound if your mind occupies such shallow lots. To be reiterated, there must be a new edifice.
Enjoy the ride.

The Crushing Limitations of Physical Being

At times it appears things are the way they should be, that things are in order. But then I am reminded of the intrinsic I, the thing that can't be, that shouldn't, that needs to be fixed. Or that seems it needs to be fixed. I wish I could be a floating object that only observes, that needs nothing for sustenance, that needs nothing to continue. Something that only notes and records and does not ever want, ever long. But this, I suppose, is the inherent problem with being a human. I'll never be satisfied until I'm satisfied not being satisfied. But maybe it's my job to look past these innate inadequacies that befall each and every one of us. Maybe it's all of our jobs? I'm going to leave my legs in the street and breathe, and be.
And just be there to enjoy the ride. Instead of letting the ride take me. Maybe all you can really do is laugh in the face of the absurd, right Albert?

And it seems as well that instead of a constant stream of questions that instead a constant stream of non-answers, of actions, is in fact what should be. The viewfinder can no longer be questioned for the thoughts of others, the question of "who am I?" can only be answered within the weak paradigm of our own construct. Our minds are only so powerful and to continuously question everything without some kind of baseline is only a means to a fiery end.
I'm not sure what the point of this lexical vomiting is but maybe I'll find it soon. Let's have a soundtrack to our insanity, shall we?

Anxa

"I'm not crazy."
-Dontrelle Willis

It is all too often that the prickling uncertainty within us begins to manifest itself...leading to a life between walls. Inside a drywall penitentiary, insulating oneself against all possible (probable?) criticism, perceived derision and impugnment. To have your very core beliefs questioned is one of the most disenfranchising events that can befall you when your foundation is built on crumbling twenty-one year old cinderblocks.
But it is with this this same flux of pessimism, the same palpitations of the amygdala, that can cause this insuperable butte of fatality to flatten into a florid prairie of opportunity. And it is my/our/your responsibility to curb that wellspring of unchecked questioning into a calm, concise, and objective scope of what is in fact reality (which is by definition uncertain - something we all too often refuse to acknowledge...the veritable fallibility of our own construction) and what is unnecessary noise.
Like the static of a television tuned to the wrong channel, you have a grating hiss of snowy signals, a mental mountain pass obscured by a noisy winter. Pull the remote out from under the couch cushion and press that goddamn "3" again before you start watching a blurry infomercial on what could have been. How sharp your knives would be. How fast you could clean that metaphysical soap scum.
Like an arrow.
You're not crazy.
Just unfocused.

Whil A Mut

It's hard to isolate the cause
But sometimes it's right under your nose
And you can do something to stop it
You can save yourself
You can be something other than gray for a day
It's all in you
We're home free

The Distance, The Croatoan

Croatoan Island is a small island off the coast of North Carolina which was settled in colonial times, around 1585. It was one of the first established English colonies in the New World.
One day it was discovered that all of the settlers which inhabited the island had disappeared leaving behind but one trace: an engraving on a log which said "Croatoan". To this day, no one knows what became of the colonists. The answer has been lost in time.

Life is full of inexplicabilities. That may or may not be a word, but words are only a medium of conveyance: a method by which humans have learned to attempt to transmit their emotions, thoughts, and feelings. These, like most human creations, are inherently rife with flaws.
Everyone at some time or another has felt the need to say "I just don't know how to put this," or "Words can't express the way I feel". I won't lie, I feel this more and more. This inxeplicability. The whole essence of life is one big anvil of inexplicability, and I'm Daffy Duck below the window.
Words, despite their intrinsic faults, are still very valuable. They are the paint with which our tongues brush, our pens spray forth like Jackson Pollock's worst bender. Just because they are inflicted with an innate banality and limit does not mean that they cannot provide us with some solace, some kind of image, some kind of feeling in our heads.



This is the exhumation of the Crotoan, the light in the distance, the dark path.
More and more it seems that the wind blows so empty and cold
More and more it seems like this astral blanket under which we slumber has gotten the best of my sensibilities
More and more it seems that the questions and answers now both pull me under.
It's time to get some answers, or at least make the effort.

I'll try to use my keyboard the best I can to instill within you (the generalized other) the things I feel, the things I've been thinking. This is no bullshit, this is the only way I can keep myself from questioning it all away, chalking it up to fate. Let's quicken this distance between our heads and the air, the sky, the land, the fire.

It's time to get some answers, or at least make the effort.

They always say pictures are worth a thousand words. But maybe it takes a million. The point of this journalistic endeavor is to somehow elicit some kind of meaning, some kind of truth from this maelstrom of ambiguity in which we all reside. I might succeed, I might fail, I might be stuck somewhere in a literary purgatory. A lexical judgment.

Don't look at the path. Just keep walking.